Debbie Dunn was a young career woman when she got married and started a family. After her second child was born, she decided she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and attended an open house at a Gymboree location with her sister. Her sister enrolled, she did not. But she went. home and told her husband “I could do that”.
A month later she saw an ad in Parent’s Magazine for franchise opportunities with the brand. She flew out to California with her sister and, within 23 hours, was back in New Jersey as the owner of Gymboree franchise number 88. Over close to four decades, Debbie has owned and operated four different locations, and has introduced and taught just about every class that Gymboree has offered. She is the proud mother of four children (who all got involved in the business in some capacity from time to time) and eight grandchildren.
After all of these years, with all of the challenges that come along with being a small business owner, she still feels that Gymboree Play & Music is the greatest program out there for young children and their adults, and still gets great joy from the families in her program.
As Debbie says “it’s hard not to be happy when you walk into Gymboree”!
