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Community Servings is dedicated to providing free home-delivered meals throughout Eastern Massachusetts to people homebound with HIV/AIDS and other acute life-threatening illnesses, who are unable to shop or cook for themselves.ᅠWe give our clients, their dependent families, and caregivers appealing, nutritious meals, and send the message to those in greatest need that someone cares. ᅠOur goals are to help our clients maintain their health and dignity and preserve the integrity of their families through free, culturally appropriate, home-delivered meals, nutrition education, and other community programs.
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Our Clients
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Our clients come from very diverse backgrounds and represent many different ethnicities. 90%, however, are living in poverty. 58% are men, 42% are women. 71% of our meals go to people of color, including African-American, Latino, Haitian, and Cape Verdean clients. Children receive 33% of our meals, and 80% of their caregivers are single parents.
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The Need
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Community Servings' free, home-delivered meals are critical to the health and well being of men, women, and children living with an acute life-threatening illness. We design our meals to meet the complex dietary requirements of people coping with a devastating illness who are unable to cook for themselves. Most of our clients are also struggling economically and can't afford to maintain a proper and balanced diet.ᅠ
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The requests for our meals continue to grow as the number of people homebound with criticalᅠillness increases. We strive to address the growing demand in the communities we already serve and the unmet needs in surrounding areas where there are no meal delivery programs for people too ill to shop or cook for themselves.
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Community Serving Community
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Through the experience and dedication of our 33 staff members and the generosity of the 850 volunteers who walk through our doors every month, we deliver two daily meals to the 725 individuals and families.ᅠ In addition to feeding our sick and hungry neighbors, Community Servings strives to provide a higher level of service to our clients and the community by:
- Welcoming food-service job trainees.ᅠ Four times each year, groups of eight to ten men and women who face life challenges and barriers to employment spend 12 weeks in Community Servings' teaching kitchen and classroom.ᅠ As they learn basic food service skills, these students are helping our staff prepare the meals we deliver to our clients each day.ᅠ
- Holding on-site nutrition education programs.ᅠ Our clients who no longer need our home-delivered meals, but don't know how to maintain a healthy diet on a budget, can now attendᅠShare Our Strength's Operation Frontlineᅠnutrition education classes for 6 weeks.ᅠ Led by our registered dietitian, each class covers topics like the importance of a low-fat diet and whole grains.ᅠ
- Offering assistance to people struggling with HIV/AIDS in South Africa.ᅠ In partnership with 3 of our sister agencies across the U.S., we are leveraging our 19 years of experience in feeding people with HIV/AIDS here in Massachusetts to offer technical assistance to our "neighbors" in South Africa, where 5.5 million people live with the disease.
We are profoundly grateful for the devoted support the Greater Boston community continues to give our organization!
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