Community Servings Awarded 10-Year Cummings Foundation Grant

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Community Servings is one of 30 local nonprofits sharing in $10 million in funding from Cummings Foundation. The Jamaica Plain-based organization will receive $333,300 over 10 years.


Founded in 1990, Community Servings provides medically tailored meals and nutrition services to individuals and families living with critical and chronic illnesses. As medically tailored meal services are further integrated into patient-centered models of care, Community Servings expects to continue its rapid growth.

“We are so grateful to the Cummings Foundation for this award and the $100,000 grant we received from them in June; it is an incredible demonstration of support of the healing power of food and our team’s mission to prepare and deliver nourishing meals,” said David Waters, CEO of Community Servings. “Food heals, and with the support of Cummings Foundation, we will be able to help more people struggling with illness to lead richer lives and have better medical outcomes.”

The grant funds will support Community Servings’ ambitious 10-year growth plan to expand production and delivery of home-delivered medically tailored meals and nutrition services to individuals, their dependent children, and caregivers affected by illness and hunger.

“Greater Boston is so fortunate to have nonprofits like Community Servings that are listening to the community and working to meet its needs,” said Cummings Foundation grants manager Christina Berthelsen. “By providing a full decade of support, we hope to alleviate some of the constant fundraising burden, enabling nonprofit staff to spend more time actually providing services.”

This long-term funding is part of the Cummings $20 Million Grant Program, which supports Massachusetts nonprofits that are based in and primarily serve Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties.

In the first phase of this philanthropic initiative, 130 nonprofits were awarded $100,000 each in June. In the second phase, just completed, repeat grant winners were considered to have their $100,000 grants elevated to 10-years awards of $200,000 to $500,000 each.

Nonprofits contending for the extended funding made presentations via Zoom to a panel of Cummings Foundation volunteers. These community volunteers selected 19 of the 30 grant winners. The other 11 recipients had been determined in June by Foundation team members.

“As a way to share the economic power of the Foundation, we have created a system through which volunteers decide more than half of all our grant winners,” said Berthelsen. “We benefit from their diverse backgrounds and perspectives; they benefit from an enlightening learning opportunity; and the nonprofits often benefit from increased exposure and new advocates.”

Through the Cummings $20 Million Grant Program, Cummings Foundation gives back in the area where it owns commercial buildings, all of which are managed, at no cost to the Foundation, by its affiliate, Cummings Properties. Founded in 1970 by Bill Cummings, the Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages 10 million square feet of debt-free space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the Foundation.

Cummings Foundation has now awarded more than $280 million to greater Boston nonprofits alone. It increased its annual grant program from $20 million to $25 million during the current 2021 cycle.

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