'Forever remembered': On World AIDS Day, ground broken for important memorial ⋆ The Palm Springs Post

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*Attendees at a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Palm Springs AIDS Memorial view a model of what the finished piece should look like in Downtown Park.*

Ground was broken on the long-awaited Palm Springs AIDS Memorial on World AIDS Day Monday, marking the culmination of a 12-year effort to create a lasting place of remembrance, healing and hope in the heart of the city.

The morning ceremony at Downtown Park signaled far more than the start of construction. For many, it represented the community’s resilience through decades of loss, the hundreds of stories that surfaced during the memorial’s development, and the transformation of a simple question into a work of marble and aluminum now taking shape in Italy and Chicago.

Dan Spencer, founder and spokesperson for the Palm Springs AIDS Memorial Task Force, recalled asking a question 12 years ago during a World AIDS Day event at the Palm Springs Art Museum: When will Palm Springs have an AIDS memorial?

“Today, 12 years later, I’m smiling and answering that question with a beautiful and significant memorial,” he told the crowd.

Spencer’s connection to the AIDS crisis stretches back to the 1980s, when he worked as an architect in Minneapolis designing clinics and day centers for people with AIDS. He kept a personal grief file filled with obituaries, photos and mementos —eventually too full to contain the loss.

Twenty-five years ago, he moved to Palm Springs, drawn by the climate and the inclusive community shaped by two decades of care and activism. The city’s early response led to the formation of Desert AIDS Project, now DAP Health, in 1984.

Palm Springs City Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein praised Spencer and the task force for pushing through challenges along the way.

“It took years of work, fundraising, organizing and dedication,” he said. “There was a period last year when a bump in the road threatened the project. But our community came together, just like the community came together decades ago to fight HIV/AIDS.”

That outpouring included not just advocacy but storytelling. Bernstein said he heard from hundreds of residents — people who volunteered in hospitals when nurses refused to enter rooms, someone who turned his own home into a hospice, and others who helped launch Desert AIDS Project when few understood the crisis.

Bernstein also linked the memorial’s importance to recent federal policy changes that restrict government messaging on commemorative days such as World AIDS Day.

“Now we are meant to believe that awareness is not a strategy,” he said. “This memorial with the words forever celebrated, forever loved, forever remembered speaks to the many lives lost, and it’s now more important than ever.”

With ceremonial shovels in hand, members of the The Palm Springs AIDS Memorial Task Force and the artist creating the memorial broke ground at Downtown Park Monday morning. If all goes as planned, the artwork should be in place next spring.

The project’s momentum has been fueled by broad community support. Hundreds of donors and residents have contributed time, energy and money toward the $1.2 million fundraising goal, leaving just $275,000 to go. The memorial will be gifted to the city and added to its public art collection.

As fundraising nears the finish line, the physical work is accelerating, with installation planned for next spring.

“For four years, when I talked about this memorial, it was a hope and a dream,” Smith said. “This morning, I’d like to give you an update on how the Well of Love is shifting from vision to reality.”

Artist Philip K. Smith updated attendees on the memorial’s progress, noting that marble for the three oval forms has been selected at a quarry in Sardinia, Italy, and is on its way to a fabrication team near Lucca. Polished aluminum elements will be manufactured in Chicago, and general contractor Tom Rice Construction is already coordinating site logistics as preliminary engineering review wraps up.

*Dan Spencer, founder and spokesperson for the Palm Springs AIDS Memorial Task Force, speaks during a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony Monday morning in Downtown Park.*

Smith said a digital component will accompany the physical memorial, including a QR-enabled online experience designed by a Palm Springs company to share the memorial’s concept and to highlight the timeline of HIV and AIDS in the city.

Spencer closed the ceremony with a reminder that the project is not only about honoring the past — it is about ensuring the history of the AIDS crisis in Palm Springs is never forgotten.

“Our memorial, our well of love in the desert, speaks loudly and collectively for those who doubt we will forever remember, forever love and forever celebrate,” he said.

More information: Donations to the project can be made via this website.