David Waters

David has been involved with Community Servings since its founding in 1989, moving from volunteer to board member, Board Chair, Director of Development, and eventually CEO, in 1999.

Under David’s leadership over the past 25 years, 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 2,500 people with acute life-threatening illnesses, their dependents, and caregivers, across Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The agency is also currently the largest research site in the nation, studying the impact of medically tailored meals on patient outcomes and costs, having published 5 peer-reviewed studies.

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. The agency also currently co-leads three NIH R01 nutrition studies in partnership with Tufts Friedman School, UNC Medical School and UMASS Medical School.

He is the former Board Chair of the Association of Nutrition Service Agencies, and is a founding member of the national Food Is Medicine Coalition. He also sits on the Tufts Food and Nutrition Innovation Council and Harvard’s Nutrition Round Table. In recognition of his leadership and impact at Community Servings and within the Greater Boston community, David was named a Barr Foundation Fellow in 2017. A resident of Cambridge, he holds graduate degrees from Middlebury College and Boston University.