As they often do, close-knit cousins Eric, Kyle and Thomas Heidenberger got together, this time to serve as co-chairs of the Hope Blossoms event for St. Ann’s Center for Children, Youth and Families in Hyattsville, Maryland, on May 13, 2026 at the Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase.
And in standing together for St. Ann’s that evening, they honored a family legacy. Michele Heidenberger – Thomas’s mother and Eric and Kyle’s aunt – was a devoted volunteer and supporter of St. Ann’s who died 25 years ago on Sept. 11, 2001 while serving as the senior flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 77 that terrorists crashed into the Pentagon.
After Michele Heidenberger’s tragic death, her brother-in-law Steve Heidenberger – Kyle’s father and Eric and Thomas’s uncle – became a leading supporter of St. Ann’s, serving on its board of directors and helping to start its Hope Blossoms benefit, with St. Ann’s volunteer award named in Michele’s honor. Steve Heidenberger, who worked in the construction business, died in 2020, and he received the Michele Heidenberger Volunteer Award posthumously.
Introducing the Heidenberger cousins at the Hope Blossoms gathering, Sister Nancy Downing, a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame who serves as the CEO of St. Ann’s, said, “Growing up in the Heidenberger family, Eric, Kyle and Thomas were introduced early to our mission… As they’ve grown into accomplished men in their own right, they continued to share their gifts and to share them with St. Ann’s.”
As he spoke to the crowd at the country club, Thomas Heidenberger said when they were asked by St. Ann’s staff to co-chair the event, “It was really a true full circle moment for us as cousins and as Heidenbergers to come in and step in, because standing up here, we feel that infectious sense of pride and the honor that my uncle and my mother had with the mission of St. Ann’s.”
Standing next to him and smiling were his cousins, Eric and Kyle Heidenberger.
Continuing a family’s legacy
Thomas Heidenberger, who is 39, works with T. Rowe Price as a fixed income portfolio specialist. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife Christie and their two daughters and their son. The family attends the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Mater Dei School in Bethesda, Maryland, and he was a 14-year-old freshman at Gonzaga College High School in Washington when his mother died. He later graduated from Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda and the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. “I kept it in the Jesuit ecosystem,” he joked in a later interview.
Eric Heidenberger, who is 41, is a restaurant owner and operator with six locations in Washington, D.C., and two in Bethany Beach, Delaware. He and his wife Amanda live in Chevy Chase and have two sons, and they are also Blessed Sacrament parishioners. Like his cousin Thomas, he went to Mater Dei School and Georgetown Prep. He later graduated from Villanova University.
Kyle Heidenberger, who is 40, does strategic consulting for Kaiser Permanente and lives in Washington, D.C. He grew up attending Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Bethesda and after graduating from The Heights School in Potomac, he attended Bullis School in that community.
Speaking at the Hope Blossoms event, Thomas Heidenberger told how his mom inspired his family’s involvement with St. Ann’s Center for Children, Youth and Families.
“She was a flight attendant. She would leave for work for a couple days. She’d come home for a couple days, and I remember she would just essentially jet off to St. Ann’s, really with no agenda. She would do things like go rock crying babies, spend time with the mothers there, hang out with the staff, and play with the children,” he said. “And so by proxy, she got us involved. Eric and I went to grade school together, and I remember she would leverage our school, and do things like toy drives around the holidays, diaper drives and things like that.”
Thomas Heidenberger added that, “I always remember feeling this sense of pride because I was like, ‘Oh, that’s my mom who’s organizing the diaper and toy drives, and I’m the cool 9-year-old who gets to go with her and drop off the toys.’… My friends and classmates, we would go, we would drop the toys off and play with the kids, and it was really, really great.”
His mom’s pride toward supporting the mission of St. Ann’s was really infectious, he said, adding, “And sadly when she passed away 25 years ago, my Uncle Stevie, Kyle’s father, he just immediately almost took over that sense of pride and stepped in and filled that void for her. No offense to Stevie, I think his talents were a little different. He wasn’t rocking crying babies and playing with the kids. But he immediately stepped up and joined the board. He would use Columbia (Country Club) as a way to organize golf tournaments to raise money for St. Ann’s. And he even went as far as dressing up as Santa Claus around the holidays to help distribute the toys.”
Hope for mothers and children
Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy offered an opening prayer at the Hope Blossoms event, and News4 anchor Jim Handly served as the master of ceremonies. Africa Speight, a former client, spoke about how St. Ann’s gave her hope for the future as a young mother.
In her remarks, Sister Nancy Downing noted that at St. Ann’s, “Last week a new baby girl was born. Mom and child are both doing well. We can watch them both grow together.”
She added, “To be seen, heard, known, loved and accompanied through a journey that once seemed impossible, these are the gifts that we give to each woman, to each child at St. Ann’s.”
St. Ann’s Center was founded in 1860 by the Daughters of Charity, and originally served women who were widowed and children who were orphaned during the Civil War. To meet changing needs in the past century, St. Ann’s modified its outreach to emphasize foster care for children, and then in recent decades, the center evolved to offer supportive housing programs for mothers and their children, including Grace House that offers residential care for pregnant adolescents and young mothers and their babies, and Hope House and Faith House that offer transitional housing programs for pregnant and parenting women experiencing homelessness and instability.
St. Ann’s support services for mothers and children include an education and employment program, clinical and social work services, and a licensed child care center.
In fiscal year 2026 at St. Ann’s Center for Children, Youth and Families, 82 women and children were provided housing and supported in its residential programs; 14 families successfully transitioned to independent living; four babies were born; and 105 children were served in St. Ann’s Center Child Care Program.
Also at the Hope Blossoms event, the Rotary Club of College Park, Maryland, received the Mary McGrory Advocacy Award named for a noted Washington journalist who was a longtime volunteer at St. Ann’s. St. Anselm’s Abbey School in Washington received the Michele Heidenberger Volunteer Award, which was presented by Eric, Kyle and Thomas Heidenberger. The Benedictine-sponsored school was honored for its students volunteering at St. Ann’s every week through St. Anselm’s community service program, “making a difference in the lives of the families and childcare students they work with.”
Helping to lead the event’s auction was Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland who co-anchors MS NOW’s program “The Weeknight.” Steele and his sister Monica were adopted as babies from St. Ann’s, and he noted that he “graduated” from St. Ann’s in 1958. “We know firsthand the impact St. Ann’s has had on our family, in giving two little babies an opportunity to be raised in a loving home,” he said.
The 2026 Hope Blossoms gathering for St. Ann’s raised $550,000 for the families at the center, and the event had 325 guests, including 60 first-time attendees.
Michele Heidenberger’s legacy
In 2002, one year after Michele Heidenberger’s tragic death, her husband Tom Heidenberger – then a captain with US Airways – was interviewed by the Catholic Standard newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington, and he described a special activity that his wife had arranged for the children at St. Ann’s.
The veteran flight attendant who had served with American Airlines for three decades had the idea of arranging a trip for a group of 3- and 4-year-olds from St. Ann’s to Reagan National Airport. She planned for the children and some adult chaperones to get an airport tour and board a parked plane. Although the plane never left the ground, the children were served lunch by Michele Heidenberger and another flight attendant. A pilot addressed the “travelers” over the plane’s intercom and gave them a tour of the cockpit, and the children received souvenir flight pins.
Michele Heidenberger’s husband remembered her describing St. Ann’s happy little passengers. “As a mother, she could relate to these children,” he said.
Tom and Michele Heidenberger had been married for 30 years when she died. She was 52 years old. Their daughter Alison, who had attended Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, was then a junior at Loyola University in Baltimore, and their son Thomas was a freshman at Gonzaga.
Amid their family’s deep sorrow, they received loving support from family members and friends. Tom Heidenberger said without that support, “We couldn’t do it.”
At a Memorial Mass for Michele Heidenberger at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Bethesda, hundreds of uniformed personnel from across the country, including pilots, flight attendants, ticket counter employees and maintenance workers, lined up to enter the church and pray for her and her family.
The next spring, her friends and colleagues from American Airlines established the Michele Heidenberger Memorial Video Library at St. Ann’s, donating about 900 children’s videos and DVDs. A brochure about the library included the words, “The spirit of Michele Heidenberger will continue to soar.”
In 2021, 20 years after 9/11, Thomas Heidenberger did an interview with one of his former Gonzaga classmates, Billy Miossi, for Start TV. Thomas Heidenberger remembered how on that Sept. 12, he came downstairs at his home to see the house filled with food and other items to support their family. And he remembered how on his first day back at Gonzaga, he found a letter from his sister Alison in his backpack written with a green magic marker that said in part, “Good luck in school… Make mom and dad proud. I’ll see you when you get home. Peace, love and happiness, your sister Ali.”
Her letter and support then, he said, was something he needed that day, and something that has stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Also in that interview, he said that over the past decade, during a time when he got married and had children, his attitude toward 9/11 “flipped around.” He said he had come to see the day “as a reminder to celebrate what you have,” and remember what some people don’t have, and a day to feel gratitude for his family and for the experiences he had with his mom.
A new generation supports St. Ann’s
In a Sept. 1 interview at St. Ann’s, Sister Nancy Downing noted how their outreach focuses on two generations – mothers and children – and how two generations of the Heidenberger family have supported the center. She said it was moving at the Hope Blossoms event to see Tom Heidenberger watch proudly as his son and two nephews co-chaired the benefit for St. Ann’s, which had meant so much to his late wife.
Michele Heidenberger, she said, is remembered at St. Ann’s “for what she gave to this community and who she was to this community.”
One week earlier in an Aug. 24 Zoom interview with the Catholic Standard, Eric, Kyle and Thomas Heidenberger reflected on their family’s legacy with St. Ann’s.
Eric Heidenberger noted how inspired he was to see his aunt, Michele, and his uncle, Steve, support the center over the years, which he first witnessed when he was a student at Mater Dei with his cousin Thomas. “I remember how proud I was to be a Heidenberger, because I remember Thomas and Michele helping organize those toy drives at Mater Dei. I just think it exemplifies how great a person Michele was, and also Steve, and their need and desire to give back to the community, and doing that through St. Ann’s,” he said.
Thomas Heidenberger said his mom’s support of St. Ann’s “speaks to the selfless person that she was. It was all about other people first, even her career. You think about when you get on a plane, you have a nice enough flight attendant, all they’re doing is making sure that people are comfortable (and) safe, you have what you need, and it’s all about others.”
Reflecting on why supporting St. Ann’s was a natural fit for his father, Steve Heidenberger, Kyle said, “My dad was someone who, if there was anyone who needed help, or anything he could do to help someone out, he was always the first to step up. After Michele passed away, my parents were familiar beforehand with the amazing work she did at St. Ann’s… They wanted to get more involved, and that started out with volunteering and helping out at the center, and then they started organizing some charity golf outings and auctions, and that garnered a lot of attention and support from their friend groups in the area, and that’s what actually grew into the first Hope Blossoms... I remember getting tabbed to help put on those golf outings back when I was younger, and that’s when I got my first hands-on exposure with St. Ann’s and helping out.”
When asked how his family is doing today, Thomas Heidenberger said, “Everyone’s doing well. We’re a pretty close-knit group.” They had just returned from a 16-day family vacation together in Italy that included Tom Heidenberger and his wife Julia whom he married in 2010; Thomas and his wife Christie and their three children; and Thomas’s sister Alison Coffey, her husband Mike and their three children who live in South Carolina.
To mark his 80th birthday, Tom Heidenberger recently rode his bike 80 miles along the northwest coast of France.
Their immediate family members all mark the 9/11 anniversary in their own way, Thomas Heidenberger said, noting that 15 years ago, he was living and working in New York City with his best friend from when he grew up, and they found a quiet street away from the hustle and bustle of the city and began a tradition of eating at an Indian restaurant on that day. Now he and Eric and their families get together on that day, sometimes for bike rides, and they eat Indian food.
Standing together
During the interview, the three cousins spoke about what they learned from Michele and Steve Heidenberger’s example, and what it meant for them to stand together in support of St. Ann’s.
Kyle Heidenberger noted how in his younger years he had been more of a “supporting act in the background” while had witnessed how his parents, Steve and Ann Heidenberger, stepped up to help St. Ann’s and its mission. “To be standing up there (at this year’s H0pe Blossoms) with Thomas and Eric was truly surreal, and I was just incredibly proud to have the opportunity to have that experience with them,” he said.
He added, “I thought a lot about what I wanted to bring to St. Ann’s, and something that immediately came to mind was my dad and my mom, my dad really was the driver, of bringing in a whole new network to St. Ann’s, and bringing awareness and a whole new wave of energy and support, and that is what I wanted to do… I was really excited to be able to bring kind of a fresh crowd to the group.”
Kyle Heidenberger stressed the importance of doing “anything you can do to help someone who is otherwise without, and it’s not just the women, it’s the kids, the next generation… It just means a lot to make sure the next generation has everything they need to reach their full potential.”
His cousin Eric Heidenberger said St. Ann’s mission is all about “giving hope for young moms and their kids.”
Noting the motto of Georgetown Prep and the Jesuits of being “Men for Others,” he added, “I kind of always grew up in that culture, and I think in today’s age, everyone seems to be kind of consumed in the daily grind of work, life, personal (matters and) social media. We kind of forget to check in on others and take care of other people, and (in) St. Ann’s mission to help young families, young mothers, you’re really just kind of providing hope for people, and if you can be a part of doing that, even if it’s just for one family, it goes a long way.”
On Oct. 22, Eric Heidenberger’s Prost restaurant in Washington will have a special happy hour, with the proceeds supporting St. Ann’s Center. Prost serves authentic Bavarian dishes, German and Austrian draft beers and craft cocktails. “There’s a lot of people in the D.C. area that not only want to support St. Ann’s, but also want to toast Michele and Steve,” he said.
This fall, the Columbia Country Club will be hosting the Michele Heidenberger Memorial Tennis Mixer in her honor.
Thomas Heidenberger said a key lesson he learned from his mom’s example is “just do what you can… Whatever you can, it matters.” He too said it was very meaningful to stand together with his cousins in support of St. Ann’s, and help bring a new generation to that effort.
“A lot of cousins don’t really have the geographical proximity and friendship that Kyle, Eric and I have, and it’s all pretty neat that we were able to come together, work together and do that, and keep doing that,” he said.
Reflecting on the mission of St. Ann’s that has meant so much to his family, Thomas Heidenberger said, “I’ve seen firsthand obviously how important the center is to these mothers and children… I’ve seen what the loss of a mother does.”
He added that he knows “how important mothers are in raising their families and getting them in the right position in life. Just helping St. Ann’s being able to do that is super important.”
Continuing that family legacy, the three Heidenberger cousins have agreed to stand together again as the co-chairs of St. Ann’s Hope Blossoms benefit event in the spring of 2027.
