page_title: Mariska Hargitay
section_title: Charity work
hierarchical_section_title: Mariska Hargitay / Charity work
caption_attribution_description: English: Actress Mariska Hargitay reads " Oh, the Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss at the 2010 White House Easter Egg Roll.
context_page_description: Mariska Magdolina Hargitay is an American actress best known for her role as New York Police Department Captain Olivia Benson on the NBC drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Hargitay has starred in the show since 1999, and is the longest running cast member. For her role on the show, Hargitay has received multiple awards and nominations, including a Primetime Emmy and a Golden Globe.
  The daughter of bodybuilder and actor Mickey Hargitay and actress Jayne Mansfield, Hargitay made her film debut in the 1985 horror comedy film Ghoulies and her major television debut in the 1986 adventure drama series Downtown. She appeared in numerous roles in film and on television throughout the late 1980s and 1990s before being cast on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Hargitay’s work on that show led her to found the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization that provides support to people who have been sexually abused.
context_section_description: Hargitay is founder and was the president of the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization established in 2004 to provide support to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. According to Hargitay, she was inspired by an encounter with a school of dolphins that surrounded her while she was swimming off the coast of Hawaii at the age of 15. The encounter, which had ignited profound spiritual feelings within her, was one that Hargitay hoped to share with others. As of November 2010, the Joyful Heart Foundation has sent over 5,000 women and children on therapeutic programs in New York, Los Angeles, and Hawaii, which combine yoga, meditation, massage, journaling, and swimming with dolphins. Hargitay said,
  I started getting fan mail from survivors who felt a connection to Olivia. In many of these letters, people would disclose their personal stories of abuse—some for the very first time. I remember getting the sense that many were living in isolation with so much shame, but the shame belonged to the perpetrators. I wanted to help find a way to help people reclaim their lives and live them with a renewed sense of possibility and hope. And that's what we work to do every day at Joyful Heart.
  Since Hargitay received these letters from women, she knew that she had to use her platform to do something really special. Her character, Olivia Benson, was heavily involved in rape and domestic violence cases in New York; in many episodes she defended the women, because she knew the trauma that they had experienced.  The women that watched the show felt a connection with her, which led them to send her letters because they thought she could do something with them. She in fact did; Hargitay became a certified rape counselor.  With this, she was able to talk to these women, make them feel better and let them know that they are not alone; she helped the victims to be able to live their lives again.
  According to Hargitay, the Foundation has raised $20 million and helped approximately 5,000 survivors as of April 2011. Reference to the Joyful Heart Foundation was worked into episodes of Special Victims Unit, via a necklace containing two pendants representing the Foundation that Hargitay's character began wearing in the show's 13th season. The Foundation partners with several brands to create products supporting their cause, including Me&Ro, Michael Stars, and AZIAM's Wife Lover Tanks.
  Back in November 2009, Hargitay and the Joyful Heart Foundation built healing and wellness kits for women that suffered domestic violence attacks and were currently in the Los Angeles County's domestic violence shelters. They created enough kits to give one to each woman, around 600 women. In California, the domestic violence services budget was in a major crisis, since it was severely cut shelters were forced to turn women away because they couldn't afford to keep them. Mariska and her foundation fought this cause and donated money to try and show how important it is that these women have shelters that they can go to in order to feel safe.
  Hargitay has worked with Michigan Police and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy to raise awareness about the statistics of untested rape kits. While planning to produce a documentary called Shelved, about the thousands of untested rape kits, Hargitay called this lack of testing "the clearest and most shocking demonstration of how we regard these crimes in our country."
  Hargitay appeared in the 17th season of NBC's The More You Know public service announcements in 2006, and again in the spring of 2009. She is an honorary board member director of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
  On September 27, 2011, Hargitay donated $100,000 to her alma mater, the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television for scholarship.
  In 2012, Hargitay campaigned for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
  On February 17, 2012, Hargitay made a donation of $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund, the maximum individual contribution allowed by law at the time.
caption: Hargitay reading Oh! The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss at the 2010 White House Easter Egg Roll
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