Greetings from Jolana and Shereef Bishay, Official Announcement, July 12, 2023

Hello and warmest gratitude for being supporters of Challenge Day.

Shereef and I have been heartfelt fans of this organization for nearly 20 years. We are both former Challenge Day leaders.

We met a few months before we started training to become leaders, and doing this work together was a foundational part of our love story. We just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary, and live with our 2 sons on a beautiful piece of land in Marin County, California with our 12 and 14-year-old sons.

Shereef has been the founder and CEO of several successful companies, including Career Egypt, DevBootcamp, Learner's Guild and Zomes, and is a former Challenge Day board member. I lead transformational retreats and have a private counseling practice. Together, we are incredibly excited and honored to steward Challenge Day's next chapter.

We believe deeply in this work and are committed to the foundational Challenge Day program being an extraordinary, exemplary workshop with world-class follow-up. We are committed to Challenge Day leaders having a meaningful, well-paid, dignified livelihood. Eventually, we hope to usher in a phase of thoughtful expansion where any school that wants it can have a Challenge Day, and programs are happening all over the world.

Our plan to make this happen includes running a very lean organization where Challenge Day leaders are at the center with increased sovereignty, responsibility and pay, and back office operations are systematized, streamlined and spare. We have set up the legal structure so that every dollar raised goes directly to the schools and will be proportionally matched to support fundraising staff.

We’re committed to not raising the price of the program so that we can continue to be affordable to schools. Everything we are building is scalable, and applicable internationally, for when the time is right for growth. Shereef and I know we are building on a remarkable foundation. We love this work.

We have led Challenge Days in hundreds of rooms with thousands of young people and adults and have witnessed firsthand the power of this program to change lives and transform schools for the better. We have seen what happens when young people are real, connected and empowered.

We are thrilled to be bringing our energy, resources, experience and heart in service of this work.

Thank you for helping us build a world where everyone feels safe, loved and celebrated.

?Let's keep at it!????????????????????????????????????????????????

?In service and gratitude,

Jolana and Shereef Bishay