A Shark to Call Their Own: Shark Angels Takes the Underwater World Into a Children’s Hospital

For years, Jamie Pollack has wanted to take children in hospital somewhere very different.

Not physically, but for a few hours at least, underwater and into the world that has occupied such a large part of her own life.

On October 13, the Executive Director of Shark Angels will visit Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park with a simple ambition: to give children undergoing treatment a chance to forget about hospitals for a while and discover what it is really like to encounter sharks.

It is something Pollack says she has dreamed of doing since she began working with Shark Angels.

“My goal is to take their minds off their illness for just a little while and bring them to Shark Angels’ happy place: underwater, diving with sharks,” she explains on the organisation’s campaign page.

But Shark Angels wants the experience to leave the children with something more than memories of the day.

The organisation is hoping to give every child taking part their own symbolic shark adoption, and it is asking divers and shark lovers to help make that happen.

Bringing Sharks Into the Hospital

For many children, their earliest impressions of sharks come from films, television and stories in which the animals are portrayed as something to fear.

Pollack has spent much of her career trying to change that perception.

A diver for more than 30 years, she has encountered numerous shark species around the world and now uses those experiences as part of Shark Angels’ education work.

The organisation regularly takes its shark education into schools, homes and events, using presentations, underwater footage and interactive activities to introduce young people to shark biology, conservation and what encountering these animals underwater is actually like.

On October 13, that approach will enter a very different environment.

Through videos, stories and shark trivia, Pollack plans to take the children at Cohen Children’s Medical Center on a journey beneath the surface.

The objective is deliberately simple.

Perhaps it provides a few hours of enjoyment. Perhaps a child leaves fascinated by an animal they previously feared. Perhaps it gives someone something completely new to dream about.

A Shark for Every Child

Shark Angels is also trying to ensure that each child has something tangible connected to the experience.

The organisation has launched its Sponsor a Shark Adoption for a Child campaign, allowing supporters to sponsor an adoption for $50.

The aim is to provide a shark adoption for every child involved in the hospital visit.

Shark Angels’ wider adoption programme is symbolic rather than the adoption of an individually owned wild animal. Its adoption programme supports the organisation’s shark conservation and education work.

For the October hospital initiative, however, the significance is particularly personal.

The adoption gives each child a shark to call their own and something connected to the underwater world Pollack hopes to introduce them to during the visit.

For a diving community accustomed to experiencing that world first-hand, it is also a relatively simple way of sharing a little of it with someone who cannot currently experience it themselves.

Turning Fear Into Fascination

The hospital visit also reflects a much wider part of Shark Angels’ work.

The US-based nonprofit has spent years attempting to change public perceptions of sharks through education, advocacy and outreach, built around its message of turning fear into fascination and passion into action.

Pollack’s own role has frequently involved speaking directly to children.

Shark Angels offers educational presentations covering everything from shark biology and conservation to what it actually feels like to encounter a shark underwater. The organisation says those programmes are designed not simply to provide facts, but to encourage young people to understand why sharks matter and what they can do to help protect them.

That makes the October visit more than an unusual day at a children’s hospital.

It brings together two things that have long been central to Pollack’s work: introducing people to the sharks she has spent decades diving with and giving children a reason to become curious about the ocean.

This time, she is bringing that ocean to them.

Divers Can Help Make It Happen

The diving community can play a direct part before Pollack walks through the hospital doors.

A sponsored adoption costs $50 through the Shark Angels campaign page, with the organisation working towards providing one for every child taking part.

For Pollack, October 13 will mark the fulfilment of an ambition she has carried for years.

For the children she meets, Shark Angels hopes it will simply be a day when hospitals, treatment and illness recede into the background for a little while, replaced by sharks, diving and an underwater world waiting to be discovered.

The Scuba News will follow the initiative and return to the story after the October 13 visit.