Challenge Island

CHALLENGE ISLAND® WAS BORN FROM OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING and innovation, and the franchise teaches those same traits. Originally launched as an afterschool program, Challenge Island has a curriculum designed to excite kids about learning.

CEO and founder Sharon Estroff, a former teacher, developed the concept as a way to engage students. Inspired by her favorite reality TV show, Estroff had an epiphany back in 2002. She wondered, “What if I turn the classroom into an island, divide students into tribes and create challenges that promote higher-level thinking?”

She tested her concept as an after-school enrichment program, and it was an immediate hit. Today Challenge Island is a rapidly growing franchise operation that attracts various kinds of investors, including teachers. Estroff personally creates and constantly adds to the curriculum, which incorporates science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM). While having fun, kids develop important life skills such as collaboration, compromise, resilience, and critical thinking. The hundreds of themed lessons, “Fantastic Fiction,” “The Cat in the Hat Challenge,” and “Mythology Challenge,” for example, target specific age groups.

Estroff is passionate about her business and looks to partner with investors who love children and want to make a difference.

“At Challenge Island, we consider the needs of both the child of today and the adult of the future,” she says. “For today’s kids, we offer whimsical, engaging journeys into new worlds of adventure and imagination; a welcome reprieve from the increasingly digitalized and high-pressure childhood experience. For tomorrow’s adults, we offer the foundation for building the skills required to thrive in a competitive, 21st-century global society.”

Her unique concept has won accolades for several reasons. It’s wildly popular with children, and it allows franchisees to be creative and mold young lives in positive ways. Challenge Island’s many revenue streams include camps, enrichment classes, birthday parties, scouting events, and senior programs.

The franchise also offers something that’s missing from other brands: the ability to customize and be creative. Challenge Island provides a flexible, mobile, and home-based model with low overhead and high margins.

“We give tremendous support to our franchise partners and think of them as family,” Estroff says.

For more information, visit www.challenge-island.com