The Mario Lemieux Foundation was created in 1993 by hockey legend Mario Lemieux. In that year, Mario was enjoying the greatest season of his brilliant career and on pace to establish a new NHL scoring record. Then he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. After a successful battle with Hodgkin’s, Mario is now 19 years cancer free and his experience led him to focus on ways to assist those not so fortunate. He devotes much of his time to the Foundation raising funds to help reach the ultimate goal: a cure for cancer.
Among the donations made by the Foundation was a $5 million gift to UPMC Health System to establish the Mario Lemieux Centers for Patient Care and Research in 2001. In 2002, the Lemieux Foundation established an Endowed Chair in Pediatric Oncology Research 
at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh with a $1 million gift. The MLF’s latest donation was a $3 million gift to the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in 2010 to create the Mario Lemieux Center for Blood Cancers at the Hillman Cancer Center.
Nathalie Lemieux expanded the Foundation’s scope in 2000 when she created Austin’s Playroom Project following Nathalie and Mario’s personal experience while caring for their profoundly premature infant son at Magee-Women’s Hospital. As they were tending to young Austin, there was no place to provide a comfortable calming environment and engage his sisters Lauren and Stephanie. It was then that Nathalie devised this idea to someday raise funds for playrooms at area hospitals. In 12 years, 27 Austin’s Playrooms have opened, including our first military playroom at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.
In 2005, the Lemieux Family Center was established at the Children’s Home of Pittsburgh with a $2 million gift – an initiative that supports and nurtures families during the difficult process of transitioning from hospital care to life back at home.
A gift of $1.6 million to The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC established the Mario Lemieux Foundation Endowment for Pediatric Hematology /Oncology Research. The gift also provided funding for two new playrooms: an Austin’s Playroom on the sixth floor for in-patients and The Lemieux Sibling Center in the main lobby which is dedicated to patient siblings.
The new Mario Lemieux Center for Blood Cancers, being built at Hillman Cancer Center in Pittsburgh, will offer comprehensive diagnostic services, individually designed treatment plans, and long-term follow-up services to patients with leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other blood malignancies.  Funded in part by a $3 million gift from the Mario Lemieux Foundation, the Center will feature SMART (self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology) technologies in order to deliver more effective, safe, efficient, and individualized care, such as patient touch screens, patient tracking systems, and videoconferencing, all aimed at enhancing patient-centered care.
After the initial pledge of $3M, the Lemieux Foundation Board of Directors pledged an additional $500,000 to the new Mario Lemieux Center for Blood Cancers to provide an outdoor terrace to the larger 24,000 square-foot outpatient treatment facility. The terrace is designed to provide an outdoor oasis for patients and caregivers and will contribute significantly to their treatment and recovery experience. Specifically, this type of outdoor space provides positive benefits to patients by providing a retreat from the clinical space to a natural environment that promotes relaxation and healing.
The Mario Lemieux Celebrity Invitational presented by Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and its attendant events serve as the largest fundraising vehicle for the Mario Lemieux Foundation. After eight successful years of a four-day celebrity tournament that featured galleries of as many as 60,000 spectators, the 2006 event was closed to the public in an effort to maximize the level of corporate entertainment for our ongoing sponsors and supporters. The 2013 event will be held for the sixth consecutive year at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and remain a private event. If you are interested in participating, please send us an email as soon as possible, as golf groups are in high demand.
Other fundraising events hosted by the Mario Lemieux Foundation include Nathalie Lemieux’s Austin’s Playroom Project Luncheon & Fundraiser held in May of each year and the Chicks with Sticks golf event that helps to fund maintenance costs for existing Austin’s Playrooms.
