Parker’s Cimarron Middle School Wins Donate Life America’s Excellence in Youth Education Award

DENVER, Colo. — Oct. 26, 2026 — Cimarron Middle School in Parker has received Donate Life America’s Excellence in Youth Education Award, a national honor for a school or individual that has gone above and beyond to creatively teach students about organ, eye and tissue donation. Donor Alliance, the federally designated organ procurement organization serving Colorado and most of Wyoming, nominated the Douglas County School District school for the program it ran during National Donate Life Month last April. Principal Chris Zimmerman accepted the award on Oct. 21 at the Donate Life America National Conference in Philadelphia.

The school’s administration planned and ran the program, with support from Donor Alliance. Morning announcements throughout the month shared donation facts and stories from transplant recipients and donor families. More than 360 eighth graders completed lessons from Donor Alliance’s free Transplantation Science curriculum, which covers the medicine behind transplants, how organs are matched and what it means to register as a donor. The school also unveiled a mural in its gymnasium honoring a former Cimarron student who became an organ donor.

“Our students walk past that mural every day. That student sat in the same classrooms they do,” said Chris Zimmerman, principal, Cimarron Middle School. “We wanted our students to understand the impact she made as a donor, what donation is and why it matters, and I’m so proud of how seriously they took it. This award belongs to our staff and to the family who let us share their story.”

Several other Colorado schools have since modeled their own programs after Cimarron’s. “Cimarron didn’t hold one assembly or one class and move on. They built donation into the whole school year, and every student heard about it,” said Kristin Delli Carpini, CEO of Donor Alliance. “When a middle schooler goes home and explains what the heart on a driver license means, that conversation reaches the whole family. That’s how registration grows and how you start to impact an entire community.”

One donor can save up to eight lives, and one tissue donor can heal up to 75 more. Coloradans can register to be a donor at DonateLifeColorado.org, and Wyomingites at DonateLifeWyoming.org. Teachers interested in bringing Transplantation Science to their classrooms can learn more at DonorAlliance.org.