If you are Canadian your greatest inspiration may well be Patrick Chan. If you are Japanese you might struggle to choose between Shizuka Arakawa and Kaori Sakamoto. If you are Norwegian you need look no further than the incomparable Sonja Henie. If you are British, yes, you might think of John Curry and Robin Cousins, but there will only be two names on your lips, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.
If you are American, there’s a good chance that Michelle Kwan, the most successful US figure skater of all time, will top your list. Unless, that is, you come from Harlem in New York City. Nothing against Michelle coming from California or anything like that. It’s just that Sharon Cohen, your figure skating inspiration, set herself a different goal. Much as she would have liked to execute the triple toe loop, double axel, fly camel spin, or the gravity-defying quad lutz in Olympic or world championship competition, she knew by the age of 16 that she didn’t have what it took to be an ice skating champion.
For a while, Sharon hung up her skates, graduated, moved from Delaware to New York City, secured a job with CBS News, became a documentary film-maker, got on with life. Until she came across a story about a charitable ice hockey programme starting in Harlem. She really didn’t have time to call and congratulate them, but did, and told the organisers that she too was a skater. Would she like to come and meet some girls who wanted to figure skate, she was asked. Might she be willing to teach them?
Sharon had no idea what she was going to say or do when she met these girls in Harlem, but why worry. It was just a conversation after all, a courtesy call, a little time on the ice, a few minutes of encouragement, a chance perhaps to recount her own story of a family holiday in Florida when she was seven years old. That moment when she put on skates for the first time at the mini ice rink. The joy of pushing away from the barrier, gathering speed, gliding effortlessly across the ice, breaking away from the sadness beneath the surface of her family life. Growing up she had become gradually aware of the reason for it, the death of her sister at the age of 16 when Sharon was still a young child.
The enthusiasm of these young women of colour from Harlem to learn from Sharon, to push away from the barriers and racial prejudices they faced day-to-day, ended any thoughts she had of this visit being a one-off.
Sharon returned. She taught both girls and young women how to skate, watched them fall, get up, fall, get up, again and again, confidence, resilience, speed and gracefulness building with each session on the ice. Until it became crystal clear to Sharon that her after-school skating programmes for small groups would not be enough. Word had spread. Enquiries increased. She would either have to stop and watch both the figure skating programme and the hopes of so many young women melt away or make a leap of faith. She chose the latter and left her job, not waiting for the right moment, for the funding to be in place, for someone else to step up. That is how Sharon Cohen became a figure skating philanthropist.
From the very beginning Sharon recognised that the charity she would create had to be more than feel-good access to the ice rink for girls and young women of colour up to the age of 18. Enlisting the support of former skaters and university friends, she developed an educational framework around the skating lessons.
To Sharon, what use would her new non-profit, Figure Skating In Harlem (FSH), be, if experience on the ice was not matched by academic success at school and a sustainable boost in confidence. Before taking to the ice – Sharon and her supporters determined – the girls and young women would participate in small group tutorials on topics ranging from financial literacy to nutrition to public speaking. As well as developing individual skills on the ice, they would also be given the opportunity to join and compete in synchronised skating teams. Away from the ice rink, trips and meetings would be arranged for FSH students to see professional dance performances and to meet successful women of colour.
With very limited funds at first, FSH began in the late 1990s with only three instructors and 35 students. Since then it has grown to the point where more than 200 girls and young women of colour complete FSH programmes every year. After nearly 30 years, numbers and interest continue to rise. Today, 88 per cent of students are achieving B grades or higher at school. FSH has expanded beyond its Harlem base to establish a programme in Detroit.
Sharon talks about how girls of colour on the FSH programmes have no longer felt that they were not enough, how they have created a new vision of themselves, how girls are ‘transforming their own lives and even changing the colour of ice.’
Her extraordinary philanthropy and the remarkable success of FSH also caught the eye of Disney executives who made a 2025 documentary series titled Harlem Ice. Following its release, Sharon has often pointed out in interviews what she believes should be a powerful mantra for everyone. It is, she says, what the girls say on and off camera, “when we fall down, we get back up.” For so many of those girls and young women, their families, the people of Harlem, New York and beyond, their greatest inspiration is the woman, the philanthropist, who changed the colour of ice.