Community Garden Magazine Issue Two October 2015 | Page 9

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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