The Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford Foundation will host its 14th annual Wine Around the Square fundraiser Saturday, Oct. 25, on and in businesses around the Murfreesboro Public Square. Proceeds will benefit the Foundation’s Power of Pink Fund, which provides mammograms, screenings, diagnostics, patient education, transportation, lodging during treatment, mobile mammography coaches and other breast cancer patient resources at Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford.
Wine Around the Square attendees will sample a wide variety of wines and other beverages set up at stations around the Square and within participating area businesses. The night also includes dinner and live entertainment from Mixtape – ’80s Tribute Band.
This year’s event will honor Patty Marschel, a Murfreesboro resident and community leader who launched Wine Around the Square nearly 20 years ago after her best friend’s breast cancer diagnosis. Marschel’s vision helped grow the fundraiser into the signature event of the Power of Pink initiative, raising more than $2 million over the past 16 years. These funds have provided 24,000 mammograms, distributed 779 breast cancer education books and, in 2024 alone, supplied more than 639 rides to and from treatments.
As of August, the 2025 event had already raised more than $190,000 toward its $316,000 goal.
Marschel’s community impact extends beyond Wine Around the Square. She has served on the Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital Board of Directors for 19 years, including the past two years as the board’s first female chair. She has also built a 30-year real estate career, starting with Bob Parks Realty and now with Onward Real Estate.
The origins of Wine Around the Square date back to 2005, when Marschel and her husband, John, co-hosted an engagement party with several friends. Minutes into the celebration, her best friend and former business partner, Susan Loyd, quietly shared that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. That moment inspired Marschel’s commitment to breast cancer fundraising, beginning with the local Susan G. Komen Golf Tournament.
Marschel expanded her efforts by engaging women’s golf and tennis groups at Stones River Country Club. In 2007, she joined friends Rita Ash and Leslie Akin to organize a wine and cheese gathering that soon outgrew local homes.
By 2011, the event moved to downtown Murfreesboro and was officially named Wine Around the Square. That same year, the Foundation assumed management and broadened the mission after then-Director Anne Davis partnered with Marschel, Ash and Akin to bring a second mammography bus to Rutherford County. Today, the Power of Pink Fund provides two 3D mobile mammography coaches serving 26 counties.
Marschel remains a driving force behind the fundraiser but insists the credit belongs to the community.
“It is not me,” she said. “It’s people like Charlie and PJ Patel and the Stones River Total Beverages team who donate all the wine and spirits, the more than 150 volunteers who give their time, and the local businesses and organizations who support us. Most importantly, Wine Around the Square could never be what it is today without the total commitment of Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford and the Foundation team.”
Marschel and her friend Susan Loyd, now a 20-year breast cancer survivor, continue to share life’s milestones, with their friendship still at the heart of Wine Around the Square’s mission.
The Oct. 25 event will begin with a VIP party at 4:30 p.m., followed by the main event at 6 p.m.
Guests will enjoy wine and spirit tastings provided by Stones River Total Beverages, along with dinner from The Alley on Main, Clay Pit and Tennessee Craft Butchers.
To learn more or purchase tickets, find Wine Around the Square on Facebook or visit rutherfordfoundation.org/events/wine-around-the-square.
