By Robin Moyer Chung

WESTPORT — At the beginning of June 2023, Lexie Radwan looked up from her babies and full-time job and realized she was, well, lonely.

She and her husband moved to Westport in 2019, right before the pandemic. COVID wreaked havoc on many things, including mental health and personal connections, and living in a new town made life even less hospitable.

“Westport can be a challenging place to step into,” she explained. “I think we are in a world where everything around us is screaming that you are not enough or you need to be more.

“It can be really challenging to insert yourself [in Westport].”

That spring she discovered an article in The New York Times about the “sandwich generation” — a generation of young adults too busy working, raising kids and taking care of aging parents to build a friend network. It described her life.

A month later, on June 6, Radwan posted on Westport Front Porch, “If anyone is interested in creating a community of support for people ‘sandwiched’ between generations of care, feel free to reach out.”

At that same time, Shannon Taylor, one of the Westport residents with “pandemic babies,” was poking around Facebook for “mom groups” and found Lexie’s post. Craving connection, she reached out, along with more than 40 other women.

“I was so terrified,” Radwan admits. “So much social anxiety.”

With her husband’s support, Radwan coordinated a dinner. She recalled it as akin to “a blind date with people [who have] that human need for connection and to be seen.”

The dinner was a hit and more women joined. She continued organizing small dinners and named it “203 Dinner Club.”

Today, there are 190 names on the invite list. In addition to the dinners, individuals in the group host book clubs, baking classes, beach meet-ups; anything that allows people to meet on “small levels.”

Aly Marks, a member who moved to Fairfield last June, described the atmosphere of meet-ups: Members say, “ ‘Oh my God, this sh@t happened!’ It’s not small talk, it’s like I want to be here to have real connections.”

Despite the club — and Radwan’s — success, she says, “Whenever a dinner comes around, I go through 90 minutes of, ‘I don’t wanna go!!’ And then my husband kindly reminds me that whenever I come home I say, ‘I would have regretted missing that.’ ”  

While the group is primarily women in their 30s and 40s with kids, she stresses that the group is open to anyone.

Except husbands.

“All of the Dads [sic] think we are nuts to go to dinner with people we don’t know,” Radwan says. Then they say, ‘Please go off and make friends for me, too.’ ”

Robin Moyer Chung is a freelance writer.