Grow Appalachia began in 2009 as a way to address the growing need of food security in Appalachia . The discussion first began with John Paul DeJoria , co-founder and owner of John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patron Tequila , and Tommy Callahan , a friend of John Paul ’ s and a native to Appalachia .
Tommy sought to tackle issues surrounding access to local , healthy food with John Paul by cultivating a program in which communities and families had access to resources that allowed them to grow their own food .
John Paul began collaborating with David Cooke , a West Virginia native and employee of Berea College . David has since developed the program and its partnerships into a quilt of families growing their own food that spans much of central Appalachia .
In 2010 , its first year , Grow Appalachia started with 4 partner sites in Kentucky and worked with 2,800 people .
In 2011 , they expanded to a total of 7 sites across 4 states : Kentucky , Tennessee , Virginia and West Virginia .
In 2012 , Grow worked with 15 partner sites across the same states and worked with 400 family gardens , 41 community gardens in 30 counties .
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