David Waters

David Waters is the CEO of Community Servings, a local nonprofit food and nutrition program providing services throughout Massachusetts to individuals and families living with critical and chronic illnesses. Waters has been involved with Community Servings since its inception in 1989, moving from volunteer to board member, Board Chair, Director of Development, and eventually CEO, in 1999.

Under David’s leadership, Community Servings has evolved from a small neighborhood meals program delivering dinner to 30 people, to a critical regional program providing 15 medically-tailored meals plans to 1,850 people with acute life-threatening illnesses, their dependents, and caregivers in 20 Massachusetts communities.

An advocate for integrating accessible, medically tailored meals into the healthcare system, David has formed partnerships with leading healthcare payers and providers to better link clinical care and social services, designing some of the country’s first health insurance contracts for prescription meals.

David’s team is currently conducting three research projects in partnership with a research team at Massachusetts General Hospital, all of which examine the impact of the Food is Medicine model on health outcomes and costs. Most recently, Community Servings received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to evaluate the impact of medically tailored meal programs on health care expenditures, inpatient hospitalizations, and emergency department visits in severely ill and nutritionally vulnerable adults.

In addition to the meal delivery service and advocacy work, David has expanded the organization to provide nutrition education for nutritionally vulnerable individuals, job-training programs for those with high-barriers of entry to the workforce, and one of Boston’s largest volunteer programs.

David is the former Board Chair of the Association of Nutrition Service Agencies, and is a founding member of the national Food Is Medicine Coalition. A resident of Cambridge, he holds graduate degrees from Middlebury College and Boston University.