Ten years of momentum and counting: A new decade of impact.
Eleven years ago, Flora Migyanka could not have imagined what one fundraiser would become.
In 2016, Migyanka founded Uncork for a Cure as a small dinner to garner funds and support of breast-cancer research. Since then, it has grown into apremier Michigan culinary and wine event while supporting invasive lobular breast cancer (ILC) research.
This month, hundreds will gather at M1 Concourse for the 11th-annual Uncork for a Cure, bringing together Metro Detroit’s award-winning chefs and world-class sommeliers with preeminent breast-cancer researchers, survivors and longtime supporters — many once lifted by this community and now return to lift someone else, all united in the fight against breast cancer.
Diagnosed with ILC in 2012 at age 40 while raising two young children, Migyanka underwent a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction followed by more than a decade of tamoxifen therapy at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center.
Migyanka wasn’t a scientist, but she wasn’t afraid to ask questions. Throughout the process, she discovered that ILC is the second most common subtype of breast cancer — accounting for up to 15 percent of all breast-cancer diagnoses — but remains underfunded, understudied and underrecognized. And she wanted to make a difference.
Sitting down with her oncologist, breast-cancer specialist Dr. Daniel Hayes, Migyanka told him she wanted every dollar raised to fund research on invasive lobular breast cancer.
He listened. He believed in her. And that conversation became a turning point.
In 2016, Migyanka partnered with her first cousin, Madeline Triffon — the first woman master sommelier in the United States — to launch Uncork for a Cure. For Triffon, whose mother died of breast cancer at age 46, the mission was deeply personal. One dinner — held at Southfield’s now-shuttered Bacco, where Luciano Del Signore was the chef — became a movement of advocates, researchers, patients and families committed to changing the future of lobular breast cancer.
As president of the Dynami Foundation, Migyanka has helped raise more than $3 million to advance its mission. Most recently, Dynami committed $250,000 in seed funding for the Lobular American Research Consortium (LARC), the first U.S. consortium dedicated to ILC. Every dollar raised is deployed with purpose — directly advancing the science and research needed to change outcomes for patients.
Dynami means “strength” in Greek. Over the past decade, Migyanka has learned that strength has a ripple effect.
That ripple reached the family of Natalie Demuth, director of hospitality and events for SheWolf and Medusa, owned by Chef Anthony Lombardo. Demuth’s mother, Dawn Tocco, had been diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer during COVID-19. After DeMuth’s husband, Chris DeMuth, operations manager at Marrow Detroit, met Migyanka at Marrow, Migyanka provided a wig grant during Tocco’s chemotherapy — and kept checking in.
Later that year, in 2021, Tocco attended Uncork as a guest of honor, with the help of longtime Uncork supporter Anthony Lombardo, who has remained part of that circle. By that December, she had completed radiation and rang the bell at her final treatment — never alone.
Today, Tocco has celebrated milestones cancer once threatened to take away — walking both daughters down the aisle at their weddings and becoming grandmother to twins, Luca and Aurora.
The ripple has come full circle. For Demuth’s family, Migyanka and Dynami became a lifeline of community, hope, dignity and the reassurance that no family should navigate cancer alone.
For years, Migyanka has connected patients with resources, families with community and donors with researchers — all working toward better answers for women with breast cancer.
Sometimes impact looks like a national research consortium. Sometimes it looks like a mother living to walk her daughters down the aisle and hold her grandchildren.
That is the ripple effect of strength.
And for Dynami, the next decade is about seeing how far that ripple can go.
THE LINEUP
Now in its 11th year, Uncork for a Cure marks the beginning of a new decade in the fight against Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (ILC). On Oct. 16, Uncork returns to M1 Concourse for a strolling culinary experience featuring Detroit’s most celebrated chefs, led by Chef James Rigato of Mabel Gray, and a wine program led by Master Sommelier Madeline Triffon.
Among this year’s 14 participating Metro Detroit restaurants, Grey Ghost is proud to return following its 10-year anniversary celebrations this summer. The event holds a particularly special place in the heart of chef and co-owner John Vermiglio, whose mother, Gretchen Vermiglio, is a 20-year-plus breast-cancer survivor: Her journey continues to make supporting this cause deeply personal for John and the entire Grey Ghost team.
In addition to the 11th Annual Uncork for a Cure, The Dynami Foundation will also host its 4th Annual Uncork Up North at Hagerty Garage in Traverse City on Oct. 2, along with specialty shopping events at Veronica Beard and Max Mara at The Somerset Collection in Troy. The Dynami Foundation also partnered with Plum Market Sept. 21–27 and Antonio’s Pizza for special give-back opportunities throughout the month. For full details, visit dynamifoundation.org or uncorkforacure.org.