Interfaith Power and Light (IPL) recently sent out a mailing that read:
“On October 10, a powerful thing happened. Thousands of you representing hundreds of Interfaith Power & Light congregations came together for IPL’s 10% Challenge to Save Energy to upgrade the lighting in your facilities, examine heating and cooling systems, plant native trees and landscaping, inspire members to go green, and join work parties on 10/10/10 …
In order to help you in your ongoing efforts to save energy and make your house of worship a model of stewardship, we have a new and improved resource that we are pleased to announce today: our upgraded congregational carbon footprint calculator. It has the same great features to help you measure your congregation’s carbon footprint, only now it has customized tips based on your results, and you can create an account to store your results and measure your progress over time …
Finally I’m excited to announce our 10% Challenge prize winners … five congregations, drawn randomly from a pool of qualifying participants, will each receive a $1,000 prize. Congratulations!”

One of the 5 congregations was our very own, Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Atlanta, Georgia (NWUUC). We are extremely excited to see that NWUUC is being awarded a national prize from IPL.

“Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Atlanta, Georgia, submitted a comprehensive Action Plan for fall 2010 – spring 2011 that includes green services, the planting of threatened Eastern Hemlock saplings on its wooded campus, a rainwater capture project to sustainably water the Hemlocks and other landscaping, lighting improvements, and insulation. The congregation has also succeeded in raising funds for the purchase and installation of 20 solar panels of the 108 needed to become 100% energy self-sufficient.”

NWUUC is in candidacy to become a Green Sanctuary.  Check out the full list of accredited Green Sanctuaries at the UUA website.