Team Pie It Forward is a group of volunteers who support the annual “Pie In The Sky” Thanksgiving Bake Sale to benefit Community Servings.
Team PIE IT FORWARD
Team PIE IT FORWARD volunteers sell Thanksgiving pies to raise funds for the “Pie In The Sky” Thanksgiving Bake Sale to benefit Community Servings. As the founder and team captain, I could not be more proud of our dedication and commitment to this incredible organization.
This team shares a strong passion to help the communities in which we live, work, and play. Members include Tamela Roche, Mike Bavuso, Lauren Bavuso, Barbara Conen, Jim Conen, Joe Aceto, Karen Coleman, Brian Jurgens, Stella Marquez-Murray, and Ryan Wittig.
Our fundraising total from 2009 through 2025 is over $1.1M with the sale of over 36,500 pies. We are grateful beyond words for the generous support from family, friends, clients, and colleagues. We have FUN in our volunteer fundraising and we also roll up our sleeves to help Community Servings any way we can.
Visit our team fundraising page: Team PIE IT FORWARD Fundraising Page
Pie In The Sky
The annual “Pie In The Sky” fundraiser was created in 1992 by David B. Waters who is the CEO of Community Servings. It is one of the most successful bake sales in the United States. As a result of strong leadership and fiscal management, more than $.90 of every dollar raised is directly applied to the preparation and delivery of medically tailored meals. Very few organizations in the country ever achieve this impressive level of fiscal efficiency.
Thanksgiving pie is baked by more than 30 local bakers who donate their time, talent, and ingredients. Pie flavors include apple, pecan, and pumpkin. Hundreds of volunteers help to sell the pies and raise donations for “Pie In The Sky” including Team PIE IT FORWARD.
Over 50 local businesses and store owners also volunteer just before Thanksgiving to serve as a pie pick-up site. In 2025 the “Pie In The Sky” fundraiser raised over $1 million for Community Servings!
Every Thanksgiving pie purchase or donation provides a full week of nourishing meals delivered to Community Servings Clients. Clients are individuals and families across Massachusetts and Rhode Island living with critical or chronic illnesses.
Learn more: Community Servings Pie In The Sky
About Community Servings
Founded in 1990, Community Servings is a medically tailored meals and nutrition program. The main food campus is located in Boston, MA with a distribution center in Mansfield, MA. Serving Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Community Servings Clients are battling critical and chronic illnesses as well as food and nutrition insecurity.
Community Servings is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization. They are an accredited member of FIMC (Food is Medicine Coalition) and consistently receive a high rating from GuideStar and Charity Navigator.
Hundreds of volunteers donate time to prepare meals in the kitchen, deliver meals, and raise critical funds to support the Community Servings mission. Team PIE IT FORWARD believes in the astonishing power of food and the incredible accomplishments of Community Servings.
Learn more: Community Servings
Community Servings Mission
Our mission is to actively engage the community to provide medically tailored, nutritious, scratch-made meals to chronically and critically ill individuals and their families. We commit, in all our programs and business practices, to prioritize racial and economic justice and health equity.
We envision a world in which everyone has access to the nutritious food they need for health and well-being as a fundamental right, and actively engage healthcare and policy leaders to advocate for the integration of medically tailored meals into the public and private healthcare models and systems.
Since our founding in 1990, we have provided more than 15 million medically tailored meals (MTMs) to our clients across Massachusetts who are living with severe critical and chronic illnesses such as HIV, cancer, diabetes, and kidney disease.
Food Is Medicine
The Food is Medicine Coalition (FIMC) sets new standards for the intervention of medically tailored meals that improve health outcomes. Community Servings leads the FIMC by sharing knowledge and expertise with similar non-profit organizations across the country.
Community Servings believes in the astonishing power of food. Food is sustenance and everything we have ever achieved was made possible by food.
- Food is nourishment. It fills our stomachs, fuels our bodies, and wraps us in its warm embrace.
- Food is community. For few things in life compare to the simple pleasure of breaking bread with family or friends.
- Food is powerful medicine. It has the ability to heal not just the sick, but the loved ones that care for them.
- Food is an agent of change. It has the power to engage world leaders, big business and change the way America feeds the sick.
- Food is powerful medicine and in addition to meals, Community Servings’ registered dietitian nutritionists offer our clients a range of nutrition care services.
We strive to provide made-from-scratch menus that are:
- Cooked using healthy fats and minimal added salt
- Provide adequate calories and protein to support health during illness & healing
- Evocative of warm memories and feelings of comfort
- Culturally appropriate
- Designed to provide 67% of daily nutrition
- Tailored to meet the medical and nutritional needs of each client
Registered Dieticians formulate a diet to nurture and manage the specific medical conditions of each Client. In addition, the nutritionists provide guidance to help Clients manage the side effects of medication as well as weight loss or weight gain.
Team PIE IT FORWARD Videos
Waatch our team videos on YouTube to meet the members of Team PIE IT FORWARD and to learn more about Community Servings as well as “Pie In The Sky”!
Photo: Team PIE IT FORWARD 2025 members with David B. Waters, Community Servings CEO, and Tim Leahy, Community Servings Chief Development Officer.
