By Michael Coughlin Jr.
Community Servings, a non-profit organization based out of Jamaica Plain, has been and continues
to be at the forefront of serving communities throughout Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island
through programs encompassing food. The organization, founded in 1990, began by providing hot
meals to folks from Dorchester and Roxbury with HIV and AIDS. Over time, the program has
expanded to providing medically-tailored meals to those throughout Massachusetts and parts of Rhode
Island battling critical and chronic illnesses. The medically-tailored meals program, which helps
individuals dealing with a plethora of illnesses, such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cancer, and more, serves
those from various backgrounds and is absolutely free for clients. Just last year, Community Servings
served over 5,000 clients, most of whom are referred to the organization by care providers. Per
Community Servings’ July 1, 2021-June 30, 2022 annual report, 93% of the organization’s clients live
under 200% of the Federal Poverty Line, 14% experience unstable housing, and 9.8% are under 18
years old. Following a referral from a care provider, the organization has a team of registered dietician
nutritionists who consult with clients to determine the best diet for each person to improve their health
and to educate clients on managing their illness through food. Through the organization’s medically-
tailored meals program, clients receive 10 meals a week, totaling up to about 30 items, either delivered
through a driver or shipped depending on a client’s location. According to Brian Hillmer, Community
Servings’ Chief Culinary Officer, the complexity and customization of its nutrition intervention sets
the organization apart from other programs. “Our nutrition intervention is specifically designed for
each health priority a client may have. So we have 15 diets — 16 diets — but they overlay three times,
so it ends up being over a 100 unique combinations of nutrition intervention that we build every day,”
said Hillmer. “It’s that level of complexity and customization that I think makes us really effective for
our clients,” he added. Through this program, Community Servings works from hundreds of recipes to
enhance the variety for its clients, so much so that Hillmer mentioned clients could go for weeks
without getting the same item. Some of the biggest hits among clients mentioned were Caponata, Pot
Pie, Steak Tips, and Meatloaf.“Just because a person is unlucky enough to experience critical or
chronic illnesses doesn’t mean they should be subjected to culinary austerity,” said Hillmer.
Additionally, Community Servings stresses the locality of its ingredients through the organization’s
local food initiative. “If we’re purchasing things locally, we’re returning that money to the local
community. If we’re purchasing things locally, we’re shortening that supply chain and the carbon
output,” said Hillmer. Not only does purchasing food locally help the environment and support local
economies, but according to Hillmer, it also allows Community Servings to work with food producers
who align with the organization’s mission and get the best possible local food for clients. “Since we
deal with producers directly, a lot of times, we’re able to actually access food that may be considered
like high-end expensive, but since we’re establishing these sort of relationships and cooperative
partnerships with them, we’re able to provide literally the absolute best product available in New
England for our clients,’ said Hillmer. The medically-tailored meals program has seemed to be a hit
with clients — 80% of clients responded to a 2022 survey that they were either extremely satisfied or
very satisfied with the service. Since 2020 the meals and clients served by the organization have
increased by 130%, and per Ryan Levasseur, Community Servings’ Director of Communications, the
organization is projected to serve over 5,000 individual clients this year. In addition, Community
Servings also has a vast amount of other programming and engages with the community at large to
ensure that it can fulfill the needs of the medically-tailored meal clients. “Medically-tailored meals is
in the center — think of it almost like a bicycle wheel — that’s the center, and everything else is a
spoke coming off of it,” said Levasseur. For example, the organization has over 100 volunteers
coming in daily to help with food preparation and other work as part of its robust volunteer program.
“They could be helping butcher meats and fish; they could be prepping vegetables. So, in addition to
that, they are packaging and portioning individual components that make up the bag that every client
gets,” said Levasseur. Moreover, the organization offers a 12-week food-service training program
called the Teaching Kitchen for individuals often facing barriers in employment to learn how to work
in a food-service environment and get ServSafe training, which helps them get jobs in the food
industry. “They’re here learning so that they can go out and be in a better place to get a job
somewhere in food service or a restaurant. We provide them with the training and also the job
placement support,” said Levasseur. “They’re also — those trainees — are also helping Brian’s
[Hillmer] team make the meals for our clients. So not only are they learning, they’re contributing to
what we do and what we’re able to provide,” he added. Along with all the community engagement and
programs Community Servings offers, it is also doing significant things in the fields of advocacy and
is a national leader in medically-tailored meal research. In terms of advocacy Community Servings is
a founding partner of The Food is Medicine Coalition (FIMC), which, according to the organization’s
aforementioned report, is a “national association of not-for-profit providers of medically-tailored
meals and medically-tailored food and nutrition services.” The annual report also indicates that the
coalition’s goal is to broaden access to the types of services mentioned above. FIMC is also
supporting a bill called the Medically Tailored Home-Delivered Meal Demonstration Pilot Act.
Further, FIMC has an accelerator initiative that teaches other food-related non-profits what
organizations like Community Servings do to make medically-tailored meals more available in other
communities. Community Servings also works with local, state, and federal representatives to shape
policy around this type of work down in Washington, D.C. Last fall, there was the White House
Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health — the first such conference since 1969 in which the
Biden Administration revealed a national strategy that included the types of intervention organizations
like Community Servings provides.“We’re doing some big things. We’re movers and shakers in a lot
of ways, policy-wise, that I think people don’t — they might know Community Servings for meals,
but they don’t know that we’re working really hard to impact things like legislation and pilot bills,”
said Levasseur. Moreover, regarding research, Community Servings has three National Institutes of
Health (NIH) schedule R01 research programs which Hillmer described as “the absolute top-tier of
credibility.” “The National Institutes of Health basically provides grants for it, and normally an
agency might get one ever, and we’ve basically gotten three within the last like two or three years,”
said Hillmer. The studies look at the impacts of things like medically-tailored meals and nutritional
counseling for individuals with different conditions. For example, one study looks at the impacts of
medically-tailored meals and structured nutrition counseling on individuals with type 2 diabetes who
experience food insecurity. Through all of its programs, advocacy, and research, there is no doubt that
Community Servings is doing its best to help continue serving the sick and local communities but also
extend that support around the country. To learn more about everything Community Servings has to
offer, you can visit https://www.servings.org/.