- Contest Winners and Semifinalists Encourage Fellow HBCU Students to Go Green -

(BLACK PR WIRE) – TORRANCE, Calif. (April 23, 2013) – Toyota Green Initiative (TGI), an environmental stewardship platform designed to empower the African American community to adopt a sustainable lifestyle, is pleased to announce that student Corban Bell of Grambling State University in Grambling, La., is the grand prize winner of TGI’s third annual Green Campus Contest. With nearly 1,300 votes on www.ToyotaGreen.com, Bell’s plan and establishment of a permanent, campus-wide recycling program at his school earned him a 2012 Toyota Prius and $5,000 toward the purchase of trees for his Grambling State University campus. He also receives membership to the TGI Coalition, a collective of environmental experts and celebrities who speak on sustainability within the African American community and relevant ways to go green.

First prize winner and runner-up Domenio Smith of Howard University in Washington, D.C., will also receive $2,500 toward the purchase of trees for his school. The trees for both Howard University and Gambling State University will be planted during the fall 2013 TGI Mobile Tour. 

“We received so many phenomenal Green Campus Contest submissions from students concerned about the environment,” said Jim Colon, vice president of product communications for Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. and TGI Coalition member. “In the end, Corban Bell’s plan to establish a recycling program and lead additional initiatives, such as hosting a sustainability awareness week and expanding Grambling’s compost program, impressed the TGI program as well as voters.”

“I’m so excited to be selected as this year’s Green Campus Contest winner,” said Bell. “TGI is a great environmental resource for the African American community, and I’m honored to represent the program in my efforts to improve the green culture at Grambling.”

The TGI Green Campus Contest is an environmental competition where students at select Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) can submit plans on conserving resources within their campus and/or community. After an initial selection round, each of the 10 semifinalists is provided with a $500 budget to help implement his or her respective campus program. The results of their efforts are reviewed by the TGI Coalition and the two finalists’ essays are posted on ToyotaGreen.com where visitors can vote for their favorites. Past Green Campus Contest winners include Tamika Smith of Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., in 2011 and Stephen Graddick IV of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., in 2010.

To learn more about the Toyota Green Initiative and the Green Campus Contest, please visit www.ToyotaGreen.com.  

About Toyota

Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc. is the marketing, sales, distribution and customer service arm of Toyota, Lexus and Scion. Established in 1957, TMS markets products and services through a network of nearly 1,500 Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealers which sold more than two million vehicles in 2012. Toyota directly employs nearly 30,000 people in the U.S. and its investment here is currently valued at more than $18 billion. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyota.com or www.toyotanewsroom.com.