We are proud to announce that our church was recognized as a Certified Cool Congregation by Interfaith Power and Light! The Environmental Task Force and the Vegan Subcommittee were recognized for their activities in 2017 that reduced the carbon foot print by encouraging a plant based diet. The First U was certified at the 40% (or more) carbon reduction level (the highest level!) by hosting “Go Vegan for Lent,” the Thanksgiving Potluck, and having a vegan Food Truck for Ingathering. Raising meat is costly to the environment by taking up a lot of water to grow food for the animals and the incredible amounts of methane gas produced by cows. In just our 6 weeks Lent challenge, we estimated we saved 1.4 million gallons of water compared to those eating a standard American diet. We also saved 10,278 lbs of methane gas. This means we saved 117 metric tons of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere by our diet changes for only 6 weeks! We are excited about our upcoming Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck on Friday, November 9th to continue our mission to save the planet with changing our diet!