A Place at the Table: How the Hackman Family Turns Grief into Welcome

Photo by Karen Presecan

On a quiet street in Stafford, Virginia, the Hackman home has a way of drawing people in. There's Shadow, a five-year-old Black Pyradoodle who greets everyone with a gentle tail wag. There's the smell of something delicious coming from the kitchen. And this year, there's Feras Abdalla, a 17-year-old from Israel, navigating American high school life with the kind of curiosity and adaptability that makes Jeff and Louise Hackman beam with quiet pride.

The Hackmans have been doing this for 20 years. Hosting foreign exchange students, that is. Twenty students from around the world have called the Hackman home their home, if only for a season. But the reason they started — the catalyst for bringing foreign exchange students into their home each year — has nothing to do with a program brochure or a love of travel.

It has everything to do with their daughter, Nerissa.

Nerissa's Legacy

On February 6, 2004, Nerissa Jean Hackman was tragically killed in a car accident, sliding on black ice on her way to Colonial Forge High School. She was only 16 and a half years old."She had wanted to major in International Relations," Louise recalls. "She was curious about the world."

In the years that followed, grief settled over the Hackman household like a season that wouldn't turn. Jeff, a 25-year military veteran who had served nine years in the Navy and sixteen in the Air Force, knew a little something about endurance. But no training in the world or actual deployment can prepare you for losing a child.

In the midst of their grief, Louise remembers reading a newspaper article about a foreign exchange student in need of a host family. She didn't give it a second thought.

"I read that article, and I thought, ‘This is how we honor Nerissa,'" she says. "She wanted to know and explore the world— we'd bring the world to us."

That first student walked through their door, and something shifted. Twenty years and 20 students later, Louise is wrapping up a two-decade career in which she has supervised more than 300 exchange students across Virginia, West Virginia, Washington D.C., and Maryland. She'll be retiring from the program this year, but not before giving Feras Abdalla the best American experience possible.

Feras Finds His Footing at Colonial Forge

Feras came to Stafford from Israel with a backpack, a sense of humor, and never having played a team sport.  He had no idea what lacrosse was. That last part has now changed.

At Colonial Forge High School — the same school Nerissa was driving to on that fateful morning — Feras has thrown himself into American student life with a kind of fearless enthusiasm. He's in the band. He was on the swim team, even earning recognition at the end of the season with the “Most Improved” Award. And he's taken up lacrosse, a sport he’s now become most passionate about. 

“After the winter [swim] season was over, I thought I didn’t want to play any sports,” Feras explains. “ Then I suddenly heard about lacrosse and Forge had a team, so I asked [about it] and decided to give it a try.” Feras was surprised to learn that Israel is ranked first currently in Europe and seventh in the world for lacrosse, so it is now “my new plan for life.” Feras continues to improve on the field, but what he loves most about the sport is that “we are OHANA, which means ‘Family’,” Feras explains. “And I can see that all my teammates are family now and no one is left behind– we are teammates and have good teamwork.” 

The Hackmans watch Feras's adventures with delight. "He's taken to everything we've thrown at him," Jeff says with a grin. Shadow, for her part, has been an adjustment for some of their students over the years, as not every teenager arrives comfortable around a large, fluffy dog. "She's very sweet and gentle with the students who may not be used to living with a dog," Louise notes.

Feras, it seems, has made his peace with Shadow just fine, and he’s enjoying the nature that surrounds Stafford and loves little things we may take for granted like “how the neighborhoods here work.” Community spirit and pride seem to be a common theme in the aspects of American life, and life here in Stafford, that Feras appreciates most.

Roots and Rhythms

Jeff and Louise are Stafford fixtures in the truest sense. Jeff arrived in 1998 when he was stationed at the Pentagon — a posting that turned into 23 years of civilian service after he hung up his uniform. He finally retired in 2024, and now spends his days the way a man who spent 25 years at someone else's command deserves to: puttering around the house, getting involved at their church, and slowly, lovingly restoring two cars — a GEO Tracker and a 1969 Camaro.

"I picked up a Squid in a bar at Virginia Beach right after I got out of college," Louise says with a laugh, using the affectionate slang for a Navy sailor. That Squid became her husband of more than four decades.

Their two sons are now grown adults and scattered across the States. Edward, a member of the very first graduating class at Colonial Forge, works as an IT Specialist in Stafford with his wife, Sarah. Jeffrey Jr., known as "JJ," is an executive in Texas, where he and his wife, Megan, are raising their 13-year-old son, Logan, and 10-year-old daughter, Camdyn.

And then there is Nerissa, whose spirit remains present. Her memory lives in the exchange students who come through that front door, in Louise's career, in the choice the Hackmans make year after year to say, “Yes!” to one more student who needs a home.

Friday Nights and Full Tables

The Hackmans love Stafford the way people love a place they chose deliberately and never once regretted. They still go to Friday night football games at Colonial Forge, and Feras has learned to love how Americans show their school spirit as well. 

“The first football game I watched was so cool. I had lots of fun,” he explains. “My first pep rally I was so emotional and I was sad my family and friends back home were not with me to see this incredible thing going on.” 

He’s had pretty incredible role models here in Stafford though his Host Family: the Hackmans. Outside of the Forge community, Jeff and Louise embrace greater Stafford, too.

"Stafford is located centrally for traveling to New York, DC, the beach, and so many attractions on the East Coast," Louise says. "But it also has that small-town feel. You can get to know the owners if you choose to be regulars."

They're regulars at several small, local establishments – like the 6 Bears & a Goat Brewery and Mason-Dixon Cafe in Fredericksburg, where the owners make everyone feel like friends  and the service feels personal. They enjoy the Riverside Dinner Theater, cheer for the Fredericksburg Nationals, and make the occasional trek to DC or the Charlestown Race Track in West Virginia.

They've built a community here, too. Beyond the hosting community, they’ve started a Friday lunch group that began with church friends and has grown organically over the years. "We've added friends of friends," Louise explains, "and a lot of them are now widows, so we watch out for each other."

That instinct — to watch out, to make room, to pull up another chair — is at the heart of everything the Hackmans do.

Feras Abdalla knows it. He's had the opportunity to sit at that table, learn lacrosse, find his stroke in the pool, and make his way through the halls of Colonial Forge. And somewhere in all of it, Nerissa Jean Hackman is present, still curious about the world and — through Feras and the nineteen students who came before him — getting her chance to meet it.