FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Steven Henke
DAP Health Chief Marketing Officer
[email protected]
760.656.8401
DAP HEALTH UNMASKS A NEW VISION FOR THE
33RD ANNUAL STEVE CHASE HUMANITARIAN AWARDS
“Come adorned. Leave transformed.”
Palm Springs, CA — [October 6, 2026] — For 33 years, the Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards, known as The Chase, has been the region’s most anticipated evening: a gathering where compassion, creativity, and community converge for one night of purpose. In 2027, The Chase steps into a new era.
For its 33rd annual, The Chase is doing something it has never done before. DAP Health today announced that its 2027 gala will be produced as a masquerade, weaving it together with the one art form Steve Chase himself embodied most completely: the transformative power of beautiful design. This is the night Steve Chase always envisioned, where design serves humanity, and beauty fuels change.
Presented by Desert Care Network, The Chase will take place on Saturday, February 20, 2027, at the Palm Springs Convention Center.
“Think Venetian masquerade meets ‘Bridgerton’ meets Broadway’s ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’” says longtime Gala Chair and DAP Health Board Member Kevin Bass. “We wanted to create something different and unique—something immersive. An experience.”
The mask has always been more than disguise. It is permission to be braver, more generous, and more radiant than one ordinarily dares
Guests are encouraged to attend dressed in creative formal attire, incorporating a mask or whatever interpretation of masquerade feels right to them. “We’re asking people to come adorned,” Bass continues. “But the goal is for them to leave transformed—to carry away with them the heart and soul of DAP Health presented in a way that’s entirely new and exciting.”
The Chase will raise funds for DAP Health’s mission through an evening as unforgettable as the work it supports. Attendance doesn’t simply fill a seat; it opens a clinic door.
Behind the Mask: The Mission
Named in honor of Steve Chase—the internationally celebrated interior designer and philanthropist whose generosity helped DAP Health in its earliest years—The Chase raises critical funds to support DAP Health’s mission of providing comprehensive health care and support services where all people are seen, heard, and affirmed.
Over the past three years, The Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards has generated more than $2 million in net revenue in support of DAP Health’s mission, averaging nearly $700,000 annually.
And The Chase’s impact doesn’t stop at the end of the evening. It inspires a full spectrum of philanthropy and donor engagement throughout the year as well. Many of the gifts, sponsorships, grants, planned gifts, and long-term commitments that sustain the organization’s mission began—and continue to begin—with relationships originated at and strengthened through The Chase. These are a few of the ways The Chase improves the health and well-being of our community:
Ending HIV: As a national leader in HIV prevention, DAP Health operates the country’s largest PrEP intervention program among comparable organizations and continues to help set the standard for efforts to end the epidemic. We accomplish this by offering free STI treatment and medication to prevent new HIV infections. Next spring, DAP Health will expand that commitment by opening a new LGBTQ+ health clinic in Oceanside on the coast of San Diego’s North County.
Policy Changes: Policy changes have made it more difficult for many of our patients to access care. More than 6,000 DAP Health patients have lost access to health insurance this year because of HR1, yet DAP Health remains steadfast in its mission, continuing to provide care to these newly uninsured community members for $25 per visit or less.
As changes in public programs and insurance coverage continue to affect health care access, DAP Health has expanded its efforts to ensure patients remain connected to care. The organization is actively educating patients about their coverage options, developing new online resources, and launching targeted outreach campaigns to help individuals understand and navigate the re-enrollment process. DAP Health’s call center team is proactively contacting patients who may have lost insurance coverage, providing one-on-one guidance, answering questions, assisting with eligibility reviews, and helping them secure available benefits. Philanthropic support, including funds raised through The Chase, makes these vital navigation, outreach, and patient-support services possible and helps ensure that access to care remains available for everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.
Women’s Health: Need throughout the Coachella Valley continues to grow, with too many women still facing barriers in obtaining timely, comprehensive care. Every woman deserves preventive screenings, reproductive health care, chronic disease management, and compassionate clinicians who understand her unique health care journey. Our new women’s health center opening in 2027 at DAP Health Sunrise in Palm Springs reflects our commitment to closing gaps in care, protecting and expanding access, and ensuring that women across our region can receive high-quality health care close to home, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
An Evening Both Familiar and Novel
Many of the elements’ attendees have come to love about The Chase will remain: a lively cocktail reception and stellar silent auction, a gourmet dinner, beloved community honorees, and a chance to support the nonprofit’s lifesaving work via a live auction and “raise-the-paddle” appeal.
But instead of building the evening toward a single headline entertainer performing on a main stage, as The Chase has done in years past, entertainment will unfold throughout the night—and throughout the room.
The thrill of audience members seeing acts emerge from multiple locations and become part of the environment itself will be palpable. Contemporary music interpreted through a classical lens will mingle with other melodic styles as the evening evolves, culminating in a dance party led by a live DJ.
Next year’s transformation reflects a larger idea behind the 2027 Chase: People increasingly crave experiences that take them beyond the tech screens and routines of everyday life. For Bass and The Chase creative team, that meant asking how a gala that has been staged for more than three decades could retain its essence while becoming something unique that attendees could participate in and feel together.
Come adorned, leave transformed.
Much More to Come
The Chase continues to carry forward the spirit of compassion that has guided DAP Health for more than four decades while inviting each new generation to help ensure that high-quality, affirming health care is available to all who need it.
Additional details about the 2027 celebration—including information about its performers, honorees, and other surprises—will be revealed in the months ahead.
About DAP Health
Since 1984, DAP Health has remained committed to protecting and expanding health care access. Guided by the voices and needs of the diverse communities it serves, the nonprofit’s nearly 1,000 team members provide medical, dental, and behavioral health care, plus social services and more, to almost 80,000 people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, orientations, and socioeconomic statuses at 23 fixed locations and six mobile units from the Coachella Valley to the San Diego coast.
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