Educator, community activist.
Born at Winnipeg on 7 March 1949 to Myrna Schultz (1922-2011) and Meyer Mitchell (1919-2014), she grew up on Inkster Boulevard in Winnipeg’s North End, and was a member of Bat Sheva B’nai B’rith Girls, an international teen sorority. After graduating from the University of Manitoba in 1970, she taught elementary school for eight years. In 1971, she married Rocky Pollack, and supported him as he completed law school. They went on to have two children.
While on hiatus from teaching, community service became her passion. She served as a Hadassah President, a Tennis Manitoba board member, a school visitor for the Alzheimer Society; and a volunteer at her children's schools and her synagogue. While steadfastly supporting her husband’s business community and bar association activities, including travelling with him to out-of-province events, she was also a tennis mom for her children, who were dedicated participants in the sport.
She returned to teaching during her children's high school years, but after being diagnosed with breast cancer in the fall of 1997, she was forced to set her career aside. Instead, she became a volunteer active in cancer-related support services: at the library for the CancerCare Manitoba (CCMB) researchers; in the Look Good Feel Better program, in which she was once a registrant: and on the Guardian Angel Benefit committee. These positions led her to new professions: the first Coordinator of the Guardian Angel Caring Room, and Manager of the Look Good Feel Better program in a region that took her from Saskatchewan to Thunder Bay. She mobilized hundreds of volunteers for those programs and educated health professionals about them. In this way she enabled women to learn what she had learned about how cancer treatment's appearance-related side effects can be handled. She was a frequent contributor to the media, explaining her programs, and wrote about own cancer journey for a national magazine. In 2010 she received an Applauding Values pin—a CCMB staff recognition award. In the fall of 2011, she was honoured with the Award of Distinction at the Guardian Angel Benefit for Women's Cancer, an event that she had supported since its inception.
Even shortly before she died, she was still attending to her aging parents’ needs, and was faced with the death of her mother a few months before she herself died. Having spent many Christmases at Palm Springs, California, she was able in November 2011 to realize her plan to celebrate her and her husband’s 40th wedding anniversary there with her children and grandchildren. In December of that year, she established the Sharon and Rocky Pollack Guardian Angel Caring Room Fund at the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba. Its annual income is dedicated to enhancing the programs that she initiated at CCMB.
She died at Winnipeg on 29 February 2012 and was buried in the Shaarey Zedek Cemetery. Later that year, her children, Lisa and Hart Pollack, organized the Sharon Pollack Memorial Tennis Marathon, with all proceeds going to the CCMB Foundation to support cancer research and patient support services. In July of 2013, her children organized the Sharon Pollack Classic Tennis & Fashion Show, benefiting cancer research and patient support services through the CCMB. Held at the Winnipeg Lawn Tennis Club, the event was part of the inaugural CIBC Wood Gundy Women’s Challenger professional tournament. In 2016, the Sharon Pollack Travel Bursary was established for Tennis Manitoba to off-set costs for its annual Florida Junior Tour.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 7 March 2012.
“Pollacks honour mom with bursary,” 14 April 2016, Tennis Manitoba.
Sharon Mitchell Pollack, FindAGrave.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 15 August 2026
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