Community Stories
SUFFIELD, CONNECTICUT
When the Suffield, CT chapter of the Balance Project launched, we set out to build a community that intentionally reclaims childhood independence and digital wellness. What started as a small local conversation became a town-wide movement with over 50 families quickly signing on. We’ve turned that early momentum into big wins, including launching an active Play Club in partnership with Suffield Parks and Recreation, and partnering with our local school district to plan an upcoming digital wellness event series. The response has been incredibly validating, drawing in parents, educators, and town leaders who are all eager to shift social norms together.
Our growth has been entirely fueled by organic connection. Our most effective strategy has been a simple, relational ripple effect: relying heavily on word-of-mouth, inviting friends, and asking those friends to invite their friends. To keep everyone engaged, we send out regular updates packed with actionable resources, clear next steps, include occasional surveys, and consistent opportunities to gather locally. The Balance Project’s national framework has supported us every step of the way, giving us the tools and shared blueprint needed to turn individual family goals into a powerful, visible community story. We are proud to show that when a town comes together, we can successfully reshape the landscape of childhood for the better.
CENTRAL VIRGINIA
In just a few months, a handful of parents in Central Virginia has become a real movement. We've gathered the support of more than 2,800 parents across Henrico, Chesterfield, and Richmond City supporting life/tech balance and intentional use of technology in the classroom. We packed our community kickoff this month with parents, educators, and advocates united by one belief: kids deserve more connection and less screen time.
That momentum is powered by real partners including school leadership in Henrico and Chesterfield counties, the Chesterfield County PTA, the Chesterfield Education Association, and Public School Strong: a cross-section of families, teachers, and administrators working toward the same goals.
Two projects are in the works to support kids in and out of school. Unplug & Play, launching soon, is a screen-free classroom break-box program built around connection, creativity, and play — ready-made options for indoor recess and transitions. We're gathering feedback from Henrico and Chesterfield school leadership on their needs first and hope to roll this out in the fall.
We're also organizing multi-generational play groups with local schools, where elementary and middle schoolers enjoy free play, high schoolers help oversee it, and parents gather for a book study: a few hours where every age connects and no one is on a screen. None of it would have happened without The Balance Project: the national framework, ready-to-use resources, and the power of belonging to a movement bigger than our county gave us instant credibility and a clear path forward.
The effort has sparked conversations all across the region and caught the attention of local media:
Henrico Citizen — Henrico parents make urgent plea to school board: Limit technology use in schools
WRIC ABC 8News — Central Virginia parents urge schools to balance technology and hands-on learning in classrooms
Richmond Times-Dispatch — Henrico parents push for new tech guidelines, fewer devices in schools
CBS 6 (WTVR) — Chesterfield parents push schools to cut screen time, return to paper learning
SHREWSBURY, NEW JERSEY
The Shrewsbury Balance Project Community has been booming. Since we launched in early 2026, we’ve seen a wave of parents coming together to create a new landscape for childhood for our kids. Perhaps our biggest victory has been showing parents that they are not alone in this and opening up what had previously felt like a fraught and taboo “pro” or “anti-tech”camps and instead turned those into conversations. We’re building networks of parents who are being intentional in their IRL and group chats with other grade level parents to get other parents to come out of the woodwork and talk about all this. We’ve also established a strong Tin Can network that is further growing through Balance Project parents being brave and starting conversations. We’ve even got groups of parents reading The Amazing Generation together, paying their kids to read it, and planning a book club discussion with their kids.
Our Play Clubs saw excellent turnouts, where kids had space for mixed-age unstructured play and the parents were connecting to one another and discussing navigating tech in a judgement-free space. We were also invited by our mayor to speak at a borough council meeting and introduce ourselves to the local government and garner their support. And our presence was made known at our town’s centennial parade when we proudly marched with the Balance Project banner, shirts, and handed out and blew bubbles with Balance Project stickers on them. We’re making our goal to reclaim the lost things of childhood known in our community. We also built a relationship with the PTA and had an “Unplug, Unwind, & Dine” event with custom placemats we designed for parents and children to enjoy together at our local diner. I don’t know who enjoyed our event more — the parents, the kids, or the restaurant owner.
Just this week we met with our incoming superintendent, where we gained his partnership on our Break Box Library Initiative to put screen-free alternatives into the classrooms for early finishers. Looking forward to continuing to build our relationship with him as we work on the school end of our mission.
We’re so excited to keep building community and connection throughout our town. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years. We’re so thankful that the Balance Project handed us a board so we can catch the wave of change with them. We couldn’t have done it without their support. So proud to be a part of this community and movement.
ALEXANDRIA, MINNESOTA
We are most proud of the positive feedback and shifts we've seen within our school district. We met with school administration last summer about cell phone policies and the middle school was very responsive and has enacted a phone-free policy for this school year. One of our elementary schools had a screen-free day recently and also has an "Anxious Generation" teacher workgroup.
Alexandria is a fairly small community in a remote part of the country so we don't have access to a lot of outside resources. For our group it was really beneficial to find a core group of parents that were passionate about this movement and who were willing to just start talking about our ideas and concerns around technology and our kids. We started by slowly spreading the word, hanging up flyers, and we are now beginning to collaborate with other organizations in the community to reach more families -- through church groups, preschools, school events, and community education.
