Donate Life Float Wins Judges Award at 130th Rose Parade

Thousands of flowers and volunteers helped create this year’s beautiful Donate Life Rose Parade Float. The judges took note and awarded the float the coveted Judges Award!

Award – Meaning, History

This year the Donate Life Rose Parade Float was awarded the Judges Award for most outstanding design and dramatic impact. This is the third time, since the float’s inception in 2004, that the float has taken home this specific award. The Donate Life Rose Parade Float crew also took home the Judges award in 2008 and 2012. Over the years, the Donate Life Rose Parade Float has taken home a variety of awards:

Queen’s Trophy – 2009
Theme Award – 2010, 2011, 2014
Isabella Coleman Trophy – 2016
Theme Trophy – 2017
Theme Trophy – 2018
Judges Special Trophy – 2008, 2012, 2019

Donate Life Float – Mission, Meaning, Materials

Award-winning float designer Charles Meier created the float’s beautiful design, and Fiesta Parade Floats produced it.

-Mission: This is the 16^th year that the Donate Life Rose Parade Float has participated in the parade with the same mission, to save and heal lives by sharing the gift of life and delivering the message of organ, eye and tissue donation to the world.

-Meaning: Going along with the overall Parade theme of Melody of Life, this year’s float theme was Rhythm of the Heart highlighting the musical diversity and rhythms of Africa.

-Materials: Fresh flowers and other natural materials such as seeds, leaves and bark.

Donate Life Colorado Float Rider: Colleen Reed

The float is accompanied by those that have been impacted by organ, eye and tissue donation. Recipients ride the float, living donors walk alongside and the dozens of memorial “floragraph” portraits are of deceased organ, eye and tissue donors. Every year, Donor Alliance sponsors one person to go represent Donate Life Colorado in the Donate Life Rose Parade Float. This year, Colleen Reed, a liver transplant recipient from Denver, was the sponsored rider! Colleen’s transplant journey began on New Year’s Day, 2016 and came full circle this year at the 130^th Rose Parade in Pasadena, Ca.

Visit the Rose Parade website for more information.

To best support the Donate Life Rose Parade Float mission, sign up to be a donor! You can do that by visiting our state registry websites and clicking the ‘Become a Donor’ button: DonateLifeColorado.org or DonateLifeWyoming.org.