J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines is a popular winery in Paso Robles, California, that was founded five decades ago and is still family-owned to this day.
Family means everything to the Lohr Family. So, when their mom, Carol Waldorf Lohr, passed away 15 years ago from breast cancer, the loss was devastating to her family and the business.
“It was devastating to lose her because we thought that she was in the clear from her breast cancer diagnosis five years prior,” said Cynthia Lohr, the co-owner and Chief Brand Officer of J. Lohr Vineyards and Wines.
But her family knew they wanted to honor their mother’s legacy and help others battling breast cancer.
“While working through my grief after losing her quite unexpectedly due to complications from breast cancer, in 2009, I reached out to another family-run organization, like J. Lohr, National Breast Cancer Foundation, where the CEO and founder herself is a breast cancer survivor,” explained Cynthia.
That’s when a partnership with J. Lohr and the National Breast Cancer Foundation began. The hope is that no other women would suffer the way Carol Lohr did.
“My mother did face loneliness. And it's that lesson learned that has me fight as proactively as I do to ensure that nobody has to face a breast cancer diagnosis alone, like my mother did,” said Cynthia.
That is when Cynthia created the J. Lohr Touching Lives initiative. Through the initiative, a $3 donation of every bottle sold from J. Lohr Carol’s Vineyard benefits the National Breast Cancer Foundation’s education and early detection programs across the country.
“I do this in part because she did not have resources. She did not have community. She did not have the kind of easy 24/7 internet access to learn about resources back then,” explained Cynthia.
After 15 years, the program has hit several milestones, including raising more than $1 million in support, funding over 8,000 mammograms for women in need, and creating further research and early detection services.
“This has caught on in such a way that now our partners are holding their own fund-raising activities to both spotlight awareness and to raise funds and to also raise awareness,” said Cynthia.
More than 700 women in the country are diagnosed with breast cancer every day. That's why Cynthia and her family want to continue investing in research, support services, and anything that brings hope and resiliency to those in need.
“It has been beyond my wildest dreams to see just how broadly this is embraced because it truly is a very deeply personal family story to my brothers, my father and me,” explained Cynthia.
