For years, Well in the Desert—a nonprofit that provides meals and other services to those in need—hosted Desert Jam, a benefit concert featuring local musicians, some of whom performed tribute sets.
For 2026, the event is being tweaked into the Wishing Well Benefit Concert, which will take the flair, fun and fundraising of Desert Jam, and present it in a more intimate way. Alongside live auctions, a silent auction, a champagne reception and raffles, the event will feature musical performances by Yve Evans, Chris Bennett, Patrice Morris, Tony Grandberry, Brian Scott, Bonnie G., Gregg Marx, Eve Holmes and Kevin Tokarz. The locals doing special tribute sets are Kristi King (as Doris Day), Lisa Lynn Morgan (as Patsy Cline) and Frank DiSalvo (as Frank Sinatra). Bella Da Ball is set to host.
The Wishing Well Benefit Concert will take place at 5 p.m., Monday, Jan. 12, at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage.
“We’re aiming to get back to the format of it being a benefit concert, instead of just being a concert that serves food and then raises money on the side,” said Eric Frankson, a Well in the Desert board member, during a recent phone interview. “What we’re trying to do is bring the fun back into it. We’ve gotten rid of the 40-foot dance floor, and we got rid of the 40-foot stage. It’s going to be a much smaller stage.”
With the rebrand comes a drop in the price for tickets—in part because the organization is in desperate need of support.
“(Well in the Desert) are the guys who you go to if you had nothing, and you were starving, and you had woken up from a fentanyl binge, and you were beaten up and bloody and naked,” Frankson said. “Imagine the worst of the worst; you’d crawl to us first, and we clean you up and get you clothed, and then we get a hot meal inside you and send a second one with you, and (help you) find direction. When I started about four years ago, it was about 100 to 120 people a day, and we’re now up to 150 to 250 a day. We’ve topped out at more than 300 a couple of times, so the numbers are just growing and growing, and yet the support the last couple of years has been really tough. Between the pandemic and people just sort of tightening up their wallets, it’s been a real challenge to make sure that we can feed those who can’t feed themselves.
“Through the entire pandemic, we did not miss one day of feeding. We have not missed a single day of feeding people for 25 years.”
The past year has been so tough that the nonprofit’s Christmas plans had to change.
“Usually we supply 1,000 meals, and 600 kids with toys and everything else,” Frankson said. “(This year), we just couldn’t do it, so (we threw) in with Oscar’s in Palm Springs … to help them out and supply food for the homeless on Christmas morning. It’s heartbreaking we can’t do what we usually do.”
The Wishing Well Benefit Concert hopes to combat the lack of financial support with stellar musical performances.
“We’re hoping that this benefit will be a success, because we’re trying to do it all,” Frankson said. “People will be generous at the event, and hopefully we’ll have enough funds that will be raised that we can go on for three, four or five months without having to sweat much. That’s the goal.”
Frankson said his desire to better understand and help unhoused individuals led to his commitment to Well in the Desert.
“Between the pandemic and people just sort of tightening up their wallets, it’s been a real challenge to make sure that we can feed those who can’t feed themselves.”
Eric Frankson, Well in the Desert Board Member
“I wanted to try to figure out why the homeless situation was happening, and what I could do,” he said. “I got involved with bags of toothbrushes and toothpaste and bandages and socks, and then it went to other little things. Finally, the bags were getting so darn big that I got into handing out sleeping bags, and that turned into tents and clothes, and then finally, it ended up with bikes.”
Frankson explained that he started repairing bikes to help a volunteer who was using a bike to deliver lunches to people living under the bridges.
“I asked him how he stopped, because he didn’t have brakes,” Frankson said. “He said, ‘I don’t.’ I went home and went online and bought … a bike trailer, and he went from (delivering) a dozen meals up to about 80 meals a day. One of the guys on the street helped me start fixing up the bikes, and three years later, I just delivered my 280th bicycle yesterday.”
Frankson said anyone with a desire to help can do so.
“Some people are doing well enough that they can help out, but they don’t know how to help out,” he said. “I didn’t know how to help out, and because I threw myself into it, I’ve become sort of the point of the spear on a lot of it. (People) want to help out; they just don’t know how, and that’s where contributing to the Well in the Desert comes in.”
This year’s benefit will honor Dan Gore, owner of Oscar’s Palm Springs, who, in mid-November, started a GoFundMe to benefit Oscar’s, which has been struggling financially.
“He stepped forward at the beginning of the year, when no one else would, and helped us find a place to cook and serve the food,” Frankson said. “He was willing to stand up for us and stand up against the forces that really don’t want any of this in their backyard. They want it gone, but he stood up and he said, ‘You can use our place.’ He’s going through a rough time. … Being a restaurant owner nowadays—talk about one of the worst jobs you could possibly have, but because he was willing to stand up and be with us, we are standing by him. I told the board when I first joined, ‘If you do things for the right reasons, the right things will happen,’ and that’s going to happen with Oscar’s, too. I really believe that.”
Raising funds through music is just one example of the power the art form has, especially in trying times.
“I sit twice a week with a lady who’s 87 years old at a piano. They realized that she could pluck out melodies on the piano, although she never had a lesson,” Frankson said. “We sit twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, on a piano bench, and she can play dozens and dozens and dozens of songs, and you don’t know why she would know them. She can play ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel, or some John Denver. … That’s the power of music. The last thing you will remember if you ever get Alzheimer’s or dementia will be the music of your life, because it’s stored in a little part of your right frontal lobe that nothing else is stored in except your humor. Your ability to tell jokes and laugh, and the ability to remember music, are really the last things to go with an Alzheimer’s person. That’s the silver lining to something that’s so awful.”
The Wishing Well Benefit Concert will take place at 5 p.m., Monday, Jan. 12, at the Mission Hills Country Club, at 34600 Mission Hills Drive, in Rancho Mirage. Tickets are $50 without dinner, and $150 with dinner. For tickets and more information, visit www.wellinthedesert.com.