The Top Railer pavilion at Lake Fairfax Park was crowded with almost 100 HACA members at this year's summer picnic on Sunday, August 10. 

Every other year HACA hosts its annual picnic at the Water Mine Family Swimming Hole in Reston, VA, and this year's event took place on a glorious summer afternoon. Members of all ages enjoyed lunch from Potbelly Sandwich Shop before hitting the waterpark, which features a lazy river, various waterslides, sprays, a water playground and more. 

Thank you to this year's picnic sponsors: CSL Behring, DrugCo Health, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi and Takeda. 

Marissa Zanno, LCSW, social worker at Children's National Hospital, was honored with the Social Worker of the Year award at this year's Bleeding Disorders Conference in Aurora, CO. 

This was the third year that HACA nominated Marissa for the award, which recognized her outstanding work at Children's National Hospital, where she has served as social worker for 13 years. 

Marissa has been an integral force behind the growth of HACA during her tenure at Children's by connecting families to the chapter. She has also facilitated a support group for parents throughout the years; has led the charge on creating a period poverty initiative with the chapter; has been a champion for underserved communities, especially recent immigrants; has been instrumental in creating education for girls with bleeding disorders; has distributed parking passes and toiletry bags from HACA; and so much more that goes above and beyond her day-to-day social work duties. She has also served on HACA's board of directors since 2021. 

HACA's submission packet included a video created by chapter member Bethany Swain, who interviewed parents and patients at HACA events, as well as videos from other HTC staffers. A special thanks to Bethany for helming that project. 

Congratulations, Marissa, on a much-deserved award! 

The National Bleeding Disorders Foundation held its annual Bleeding Disorders Conference August 21-24 at the Gaylord Rockies Resort in Aurora, CO. Several HACA staff members and chapter members were in attendance, including Hedayatullah and Hadia Saleh, who share their first-time BDC experience: 

Our family recently had the privilege of attending the 2025 Bleeding Disorder Conference in Colorado. We were excited as this was our first-ever participation at a national level BD event. First and foremost, upon arrival at Denver International, we got a taste of a city similar to Kabul, Afghanistan - our birth place and home until five years ago. The mountainous view, the elevation and the thin air made the atmosphere so nostalgic for us. 

The conference was a fascinating experience. It was hosted at The Gaylord Rockies Resort, a beautiful venue with spacious conference rooms and excellent amenities. As in any conference, the daily agenda was packed. Nevertheless, the topics were so interesting and relevant that at times, we were unsure which session to prioritize among several that we wanted to attend. From the networking opportunities to patient and beneficiary real stories to industry symposiums on recent developments and novel therapies, we attended as many sessions as we could. In fact, for me personally, this was perhaps the first conference that I attended so many back to back sessions each day. 

The opening and closing sessions of the conference were fantastic occasions. The flow of speakers, the visuals, the lighting and the perfect time management made it overall an enjoyable experience. 

The conference was a unique opportunity for us to get to know the broader BD community across the US and beyond. We made new connections, heard personal stories about common and rare to ultra rare bleeding disorders, and learned about the broad spectrum of bleeding disorders, existing and emerging therapies and the large number of support networks and resources across the community. 

We are extremely grateful to HACA for sponsoring our participation at the BDC in Aurora through the Sandi Qualley National Meeting Scholarship. As a result of this exposure, we are more informed, and inspired to play our part in being active members of our chapter and the larger BD community. 

The 2026 Bleeding Disorders Conference will take place August 13-15 in Orlando. Look for more information on scholarships from NBDF and HACA in early 2026. 

If you haven't had the chance to yet, take a few minutes to fill out our 2025 needs assessment. We've had a whopping 58 responses so far, and will be asking for feedback through the end of September. Share your thoughts on chapter programming, long-term goals, event types and topics, and a potential chapter name change. Results will help drive the next HACA 4-year strategic plan. 

Click here for the survey. If you would like to participate, your name will also be entered in a weekly drawing for a gift card. 

Want to register for a HACA event? You can do that through our weekly Chapter Connection email, or you can go here on the HACA website to check out the calendar of events. 

Here are some upcoming events: 

Saturday, November 8-Sunday, November 9 - Education Event for Spanish Speakers

Sunday, December 7 - HACA Holiday Gathering, Stacy Sherwood Center, Fairfax, VA