Thank you to everyone who made our 2023 Chicago Conference an enriching experience! Our world-class volunteers and inspiring community members are truly the heartbeat of the Foundation.
We are pleased to share that we recently reached an agreement to return to Atlanta for an in-person Conference July 10-13, 2025 which will again be hosted by our friends at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory at their new medical campus. We also have medical centers across the country interested in hosting our health fairs and future conferences.
In 2024, we are planning a Virtual Global Conference with presenters across time zones engaging our communities in multiple languages. When last conducted, we had over 3,000 registrants from 75 countries take part. Domestically, a virtual conference offers many benefits including a more inclusive experience that lets us better reach individuals from communities with limited healthcare access, people from diverse populations, and people from rural areas of America where care can be more difficult to find.
In the coming year, we will have about 30 in-person events around the United States, including walks, symposiums, and special events.
We are planning symposiums in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Austin, and more. Our Walk program will be in 22 cities reaching over 5,000 members of our community, with special gatherings planned for VEDS & Loeys-Dietz. This coming January we will have our third Spanish-Language Summit. We are also planning Camp Victory for Kids again next year, tentatively in California and Georgia.
In closing, Conference and health fairs remain key marquee events. We plan to introduce novel in-person events to deepen and broaden community connectivity in 2024 and beyond. Stay tuned.
We are proud to continue our fight for victory, together!
The Marfan Foundation is a nonprofit organization that saves lives and improves the quality of life of individuals with genetic aortic and vascular conditions including Marfan, Loeys-Dietz, and Vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndromes. Our vision is a world in which everyone with genetic aortic and vascular conditions can live their best life.