Hello Sue, 

Thank you so much for asking that question here. Now when we discuss this question other people can also benefit from the answers. Some of the answers I am going to give you (initially) may need confirmation from some of the other PlantPure Pod members. So, i will ask them to come here and correct me if I make any mistakes. :-)

Quite a few of Dr. Carney's patients are the founders and leaders of the ATX Alive group. Their webpage is at http://www.atxalive.com and they also have a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ATXAlive/ and ATX stands for Austin Texas. So, our group is not actually a Buda TX group but encompasses all of Austin that wants to join us including the outlying suburbs like Buda, TX. 

I am not sure if I remember accurately what came first the ATX Alive Potluck group or the PlantPure Nation film asking people to form Pods as potluck clubs. Our ATX Alive groups does do monthly potlucks but also does a whole lot more as you can see from their website and Facebook page. 

One of the members, Patty Falo, started our potluck in motion by arranging a small potluck at her husbands accunpuncture clinic. This went from house to house and venue to venue, including one potluck at Dr. Carney's office, for quite a few months (maybe a year?) but quickly grew too big to fit in people's homes. So, we asked the Seventh-day Adventist church in South Austin if we could use their fellowship hall once a month. Fortunately they were happy to provide us the facility which has been a real benefit because it makes organizing future events much easier. Now the team can count on the monthly potluck location and so they spend their other available organizing time arranging to 'love bomb' restaurants that are willing to put on whole food plant based no oil menus for us and also arranging hikes and other sundry field trips. 

Once the PlantPure Pods web site came up then Patty Falo also registered our group. Or maybe she registered our group and then started the first potluck. That I don't remember. But, I know where she registered the pod. :-)

My advice for you would be to find one or two friends that would like to help you to start a monthly whole food plant based no oil potluck and begin holding the potlucks in people homes until the event becomes too large to hold in a home. You can then ask your friends to invite their friends and consider creating a group on Facebook and registering your group at https://www.plantpurepods.com/ 

We also passed around a bucket at one of our potlucks to raise money to list the group on Meetup and that does also bring some extra members. But, the most people come from people inviting their friends. I believe the majority of people come from Facebook although a lot of them also come from being patients of Dr. Carney's. 

I hope this gives you an idea about how you might start a monthly potluck in Flint Michigan. Also, I would highly recommend that you bite the bullet, so to speak and actually travel to some of the potlucks in the other registered cities nearby even if they are an hour or two away, just to get to know the people, receive encouragement and get some ideas from them. 

Hope this helps, 

Sean

Patty Falo sent me a message in Facebook to clear up my confusion. She said:

"I actually held a few plant-based potlucks prior to the film but they were not well attended. I met Chris Boyle at a John McDougall retreat 3 years ago in Costa Rica. He said he was working on bringing Plant Pure Nation to Austin. We connected and I helped distribute flyers to advertise it. On the night of the film, I decided to hold a potluck at Jingyu's clinic I believe after the film since there wasn't anywhere to get oil-free vegan food. That night I met many of my new plant-based friends for the very first time. Sara Shannon and I decided to start an Austin Pod and call it ATX Alive. The monthly potlucks grew too big for the clinic and Sara found some other venues but it was really hard to find space to hold many people at no cost on a monthly basis. Then like angels, Sean Carney and Linda Carney secured space in their church - many many thanks to Pastor Mitchell-and Karon Jonakin! The rest is history" :) <3