Menifee Mayor Bill Zimmerman greets band leader Benjamin Zimmer prior to BenZBand’s holiday concert at Central Park in Menifee Dec. 19. Valley News/AC Sports photo
BenZBand brought holiday cheer to the audience at Menifee’s Central Park Sunday, Dec. 19, but it also was a dream come true for band leader Benjamin Zimmer who has aspired to be a musician for a long time. The Paloma Valley High School senior is multiply disabled and legally blind with chronic medical conditions that have resulted in 20-plus surgeries. He is nonverbal and uses an augmentative and alternative communication device to communicate.“Ben’s three favorite things are faith, friends and music,” Debbie Zimmer, Ben’s mother and the band’s manager, said. “He has always loved to play instruments. I play piano, so as a toddler we began putting him at our piano and he seemed to come alive and try harder to move to create sound himself.”His two older brothers, Jona
