“Red, Hot and Green” in Cedar Rapids and how you can win $10,000 by going green!

 OK, so maybe you haven't gone "green" yet. Procter & Gamble is giving people in the Cedar Rapids area a great incentive to do so. The company is giving away $10,000 to the winner of its Future Friendly Challenge.

Cedar Rapids was chosen as the pilot site for the company's sustainability initiative, which isn't a product launch, but an awareness effort to point out energy, waste and water savings involved with P&G products. 

   Nicole Facciuto, host of HGTV's "Red, Hot & Green" was at Lindale Mall tonight (Tuesday, April 21) to help launch P&G's effort and will be there from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday. She and others who will demonstrate the products can be found under a green tent near the Sears store at Lindale.

   P&G's Glenn Williams said the contest will continue at other Future Friendly events in the coming weeks, but is for the Cedar Rapids area only.  Anyone who wants to enter the contest can pick up a form at Lindale  or other locations in the next few weeks and write, in 300 words or less, how they have gone green, without sacrifice.

   Nicole, whose show is shot in LA, noted that little things add up to help  move the whole country toward sustainability. "I'm just here to tell people about it because I believe in the small steps," she told me during a "tour" of the Future Friendly tent. Nicole, 33, said she's no stranger to Iowa, having spent a summer at Lake Okoboji. She's into Freecycle, recycling and once made a coffee table out of a pile of old books that a school discarded. 

  Products in the Future Friendly initiative are marked with a green sticker and are already at Hy-Vee supermarkets and will be in more Cedar Rapids stores in the near future. Glenn said Cedar Rapids was chosen because the community shows awareness about sustainability and "our target audience lives here."  

Update: Glenn just sent in more info on how to enter the contest:

The email address is: futurefriendly@yandlpr.com

Here is more about the pilot: