Melissa Joan Hart knows a thing or two about making a marriage last.
Hart, 48, married her husband, musician Mark Wilkerson, in 2003. 21 years later, they’re still going strong.
“A big part of it is the commitment you make, right?” Hart told Us Weekly exclusively in a conversation about her partnership with World Vision and the organization’s commitment to giving back during the holidays. “If there’s a spark and there’s love in the beginning, then you can always come back to that. So trying to remember that the valleys or the lows or the times when you don’t feel that connected, you can ride that out and it makes the peaks even better.”
For Hart, that’s what it comes down to. Getting through “the rough stuff,” as she says, “makes the good stuff so much more worthwhile.”
“People change, marriages change,” she explained. “So I would just say if you made that commitment and it’s just getting stale, that’s not a reason to end [the marriage]. Work through stuff or be open, be honest. We base our marriage on trust. So I think trust is the basis of our relationship. I think that that’s a great foundation to build it on.”
Mark Wilkerson and Melissa Joan Hart. Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Net-A-Porter
Hart has shared a similar sentiment before. Last year, she shared that she and Wilkerson, also 48, have been in couples counseling and that marriage is “a lot of work.” She told Us that their marriage is “about kind of sticking it out and working through it and remembering where you came from.”
Part of that work has been in raising three kids together. The pair share sons Mason, 18, Braydon, 16, and Tucker, 12. Though they’ve all gotten too old to wait up for Santa each year, Hart is looking forward to celebrating the holidays in “this new scenario we’re in.”
Part of that will mean focusing on the giving aspect of gift-giving. She recalled her experience with World Vision, which allowed her to sponsor three kids in Zambia. Hart had a chance to visit them in 2019 before going back last year.
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“After four years, we saw the growth, we saw the hope in their hearts and how different it was for them four years later, the housing that they had now, the clean water they had because we built a well near their house,” she said. “They know how to farm, thriving with chickens and sugar cane and we gifted them goats. I know that I’m very blessed to be able to go and see the work that they do and to see the programs and to see how complex and sustainable they are.”
Hart didn’t just get to witness it. She got to become a part of it.
“I got to do the water, walk with a bucket on my head and see a lot of women and school children do,” she recalled. “And a lot of kids don’t go to school because they have to walk with the bucket on their head or a lot of girls that don’t know how to handle having their monthly cycle. So being able to see that and promote that and support that, it just feels so important and so wonderful.”
This year, Hart is getting the whole family involved in her work with World Vision. At the organization’s suggestion, she and her family made 400 hygiene kits, consisting of toothbrushes, razors and more.
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The timing happened to be perfect. Two weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit Florida, and as people were forced from their homes, they needed those kits.
“So to see what they do domestically for your neighborhood, for your local church, for people far off from Zambia, it’s Thailand, to all across,” she said.
Hart encouraged those still looking for ways to help to check the World Vision gift catalog for ideas..
“The gift catalog is like everything from a goat to a bunch of chickens to backpacks to bicycles,” she explained. “So this year I went on Giving Tuesday and I donated bathrooms to schools across Africa. So when I went last time, I noticed that the one thing I really wanted to help with next was the schooling.”
Hart added that donations in a friend’s name could also make for a good gift. She also showed off her artisan-handmade friendship bracelets that help fund World Vision programs.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi.