Mary-Catherine Deibel and David Waters

00:03 Hello, my name is Mary Katherine. Deibel. I am I can't believe it's 70 years old. Today's date is Wednesday, March 3rd. 2021. I'm speaking from my home in Arlington, Massachusetts. And I'm going to be speaking to David Waters who's one of my best friends and who owns a who is executive director and CEO of community servings.

00:30 And I'm David Waters. I am 61 today's date is Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021. I'm speaking to you from our office has it made servings in Boston, Massachusetts? And I'm speaking with mary-catherine deibel who is a longtime close friend and business colleague.

00:54 Mary Catherine, I was thinking as we as I Was preparing for this that we've known each other almost 40 years at least at least 38 I think is that incredible. It is amazing. But on the other hand, I think of my life as starting when I come to when I came to Boston and I've known you almost since that. Of time it was a funny meeting because I had a roommate who worked at American Repertory Theater and you were there as as a sort of a fledgling newbie. I'm not I'm not even sure what you were doing your stage-managing I guess and the funny thing was you had to stage-manage a play at the first floor of a space called the Hasty Pudding Club where we had a restaurant called upstairs at the pudding and we were upstairs from in a very old building from What Was A Very Old Stage and

01:54 When you were producing a Beckett play we had a dishwasher leak and I remember to this day that the in that in that very sparse play that there was the bling bling bling of little dishwasher droppings that accept that Beckett play and I will be coming up very earnestly insane trying to be calm and saying, you know, we really have this production up and we really need to do something. So that was our first meeting and I think it's pretty funny because in a way we've been solving crisis crises together. When do it one way or the other ever since for 40 years and laughing a lot along the way from just to give a quick level said so from that I ended up coming to work for you and in the restaurant and became the general manager several years later delete

02:54 We did find myself that she was on board. And you know, what's yours in the pudding was such a class or Star Northern Italian restaurant in the middle of Harvard Square in the historic Hasty Pudding club building and I was lucky enough to work for you or and years before I came over to community servings which we can talk more about in a minute, but I have such fond memories of the pudding and just to give a sense of our personal relationship. I I I got to give you away at your wedding and you got to officiate my wedding was pretty awesome.

03:43 Well, you know, I I thought it was funny because when David came on board we have we had already been in business for you know, probably eight or nine years or something is that place and I love to say the David actually taught us how to do an effective meeting because his executive function is so good and it's and he actually taught me a lot a lot about how to run a business out of be a good and effective business owner, even though we were the ones who own the business and we also had a had a mutual interest in advance and running events. And what I remember is David, we had a little office at the top of the stairs in this very antique building and David as part of his job was was the board chair of community servings has existed at that point. It's David can tell you a little bit of more about what it was and we can both talk about what it evolve to but that point he was he was chair of the board.

04:43 It looked thinking up ways to raise money and devised right there at upstairs in the pudding pie in the sky and command Lifesaver and I just was amazed at his degree of organization and putting this together. And again, I strove to have that degree of organization as I went on to bigger and bigger events in my restaurant career one. One of the things I want to talk about Mary Catherine is I think we both have a slightly over-the-top passion for entertaining and parties and Hospitality both in the restaurant business in the fundred world in our personal lives. How did you I think of you sort of the epitome of the the most gracious host almost out of another era always make you happy.

05:43 And I wondered why you no tell me a little bit about what Drew you originally does the hospitality and and parties in and being such a beautiful host. Well, it's funny. I mean, I think about that myself David I think two of us the two of us share that delight and entertaining and taking care of people and having people be in our homes in and feed them and talk to them. I guess I got that from my parents because and I used to love the atmosphere at our house before my parents gave the party when everything seems to change everything. Best of everything got beautiful. It was lots of cleaning and cooking leading up to the event and was always seems like a holiday to me and I have this picture of myself from Lynn Sunday night. When I remember my cousins were over and there's a picture of me in a little dress little troupe waste dress.

06:43 Passing orders which that point where like Ritz crackers or something passing orders to everybody. So from the very earliest times. I loved not only home entertaining but also going to restaurants and if you remember this in the fifties and restaurants or not, the thing that they are today was sort of hold you Howard Johnson, which was actually considered a really, you know, kind of fine dining experience in a way and we used to love that store near various family trips. But you know, I tell you the truth both you and I have a little thing called the hospitality jeans and I'm not even sure it was necessary. You by my parents as that, I was born with it and I let you know. I really have framed my existence around the idea of hospitality. I think you're you're the same way you do your chores and and caregivers in some way. But I I chuckle at that that image of you is as the little girl because it's I have the exact same.

07:43 Amory as a little boy. My mother would throw cocktail party. She was a single mom and she would throw big cocktail parties and to me it was it was a holiday, but it was also I've always thought of parties has been kind of theatrical you created environment and it's just magic place for a for a short time but I used to sneak down the back staircase into the kitchen when she was throwing parties and I had a taste for guests at a taste for Fine Food because I thought I would enjoy making all of these hors d'oeuvres and I can vividly remember my mother staying well at least ask them first. So there I am as an 8 9 10 year old going around from one serious adult conversation to another with a platter hors d'oeuvres and it became so much a part of my

08:41 Being that are the other the other adults started hiring me to work their parties passing orders at their parties and from that I you know, I got into the catering business in the restaurant business and got to work with you but also just really love the idea of having people in my home of a beautiful space a welcoming space, you know slightly over the top and Theatrical perhaps and lucky for me. I married a very talented chef and so I can always count on him my husband Jim to make sure that there's a gorgeous lavish spread of food much like you do at your house. I got from gym after a small Chris Christmas dinner party that I gave and he's he said he he he didn't that you say to me. I need to set it to you and you reported to me is that

09:41 Is that you know somehow when he came into the house, he just felt this way warm and happiness the way I had put everything together such that it was what you all were driving to driving to do in your own parties, which have to say are are also over the top and wonderful. I think of your garden party and how it's become first of all too big to do in your incredible Garden anymore, which makes me sad that I'm going to hand. It makes me very happy that we're doing the garden party at the beautiful new community servings building with with an extended allowing us to extend our Hospitality to even more people because now you have so many donors and so many people who are important to the organization.

10:27 MC. Let's sticking around hospitalities the whole idea of food and food is a as the great connector. I think both of us are working in the skin-food world is really about you know, that the love and the care that comes from providing people with food whether they're people we know are people who don't know but also that food is so important in every culture. There's just you know, whether it's the images of chicken soup for those who are sick and and what that means in different cultures or just our joy of bringing food from our cultures and learning about other cultures whether it's you know, Indian food Asian food or whatever, but how do you think about food in that way?

11:22 Absolutely. I so believe in the groaning board as you can say in other words of feeling an amplitude and plenty and I think that that's something that you mean service has been great about imbuing. It's it's you do for one thing you call the people that you serve clients as versus, you know under serve people or whatever the many things you could call them. But but absolutely I mean I really do think of food as the thing that brings people together and that's why restaurants are so funny. How many people can have a bad time when they're sitting down with loved ones or even people they don't know and enjoying a beautiful meal. And so I did I think of some of the early meetings of community servings them off and we're at the restaurant because you and I were working and so that was a way to have a committee meeting and be able to participate but not necessarily you don't have to go out of the building and so we we had another private party room in the fireplace.

12:22 I just remember those sort of meetings of being times of hilarity. I'm not sure how much we got done. But I think we did get enough done it so the event came off but just sitting by the fire and having the upstairs at the pudding Pizza Hut has the endless feed set is in fried oysters and cooking up ideas for the development committee for the you know, for any number of board committee is it used to be terrible especially for Lifesaver and eye on the sky? I think we were the place that so and so are we had very High attendance rates at those committee meetings because people didn't get good food and good cheer. So yeah. I mean, I've always said that about every board that I'm ever on or any committee meeting in my present job. I always make sure to go to eat a cookie timer some great place and have some little something to take to reward people for the for the fact that they're volunteering and I know at Community servings loud

13:22 The spread that you put on for Community lunches for the staff lunches and for your volunteers is fantastic. And again, it's it's a symbol of what you of how you think treat your clients as well is that you believe in providing for them and welcome them into your building with let's jump back for a second. So when you when I was working with you in the restaurant business was in the late 80s and 90s and it was also the height of the AIDS epidemic and want to think that I always thought was powerful was how much he ate that the most people wouldn't think of this but how much dates epidemic impacted the restaurant community and Hospitality Community because there were so many people who were sick and it resonates with

14:22 Today when we are when we're living through the covid-19 panda butt.

14:30 You were talking about too many servings which which really grew out of both the hospitality community and the very scary tragic. The height of the AIDS epidemic in the gay community and I was young gay guy who was very scared of

14:54 Dying of AIDS and was watching friends passed away and acquaintances and didn't really know how to cope with it. But I remember at the restaurant. We got a call to come to a meeting at another great restaurant Maison robere in the old Boston City Hall and it was a lovely French couple maromero bear who invited us to a meeting of restaurant tours to talk about starting a feeding program for people with AIDS and what I think it's fascinating about that. Is that most people today don't understand that in the early years of the AIDS epidemic the majority of people actually died of malnutrition. They were starving to death because their body was trying to fight off the the enemy virus and it was burning all their lean body mass do in those days. It was it was often times young men and they were loose.

15:54 3240 lb of lean body mass in a very short time, but the coincidental they were no drugs yet intended AZT and the drug cocktail spray if he hadn't come along so food was really the only answer and if you love somebody who was sick and dying feeding them was the best way to perhaps prolong their life for a few more weeks or months while we you know, just really hoped for a cure and do that meeting at maisel robere was all about starting a program with the support of the restaurant tours and fabulous chefs to beat people who were very isolated very scared, but very sick in originally neighborhoods of Boston Roxbury and Dorchester and course, the program has grown and we can talk more about that but

16:54 Absolutely, I think restaurants thought of it as their cause I mean restaurants were so Seminole in the early days of community servings too. And you know, I think that restaurants I've always espoused causes the feed hungry people under sure people the community servings fit that brought the two things together the fact that many people in our community are direct family of you don't because every restaurant really becomes like a surrogate family and you are family when you're in a restaurant with all of the trapeze all the dysfunction and the joy of a family and so people people were inordinately affected by that because of the number of gay people involved, you know who are attracted to restaurant life, but very soon found out that it wasn't just gay people it was in fact a lot of people in poor communities and the Beast people not only couldn't feed themselves, but could not feed their families.

17:54 And so it was very important tenet and something that we as board members how close to our hearts is back that we didn't just feed individuals. We found that individuals and their families and we took into account the fact that people had children and people have spouses of people at caretakers and it was meant the difference between between Social Services taking kids away from people is whether they could be their family or not. So it was such an important thing and I think it's totally resonated with all of us in the restaurant business and you really got a lot of participation from from all the restaurants and that did form the basis of the two major fundraisers that have sustained Community servings for all these years and I think restaurants are very proud of community servings also and as it seems by the number people on your bored in the number of people compared to continue to participate in both

18:54 Are fundraisers it's a it's a tribute to the agency. I think when we were founded as you said, it happened to coincide with the AIDS epidemic moving beyond the gate community or lgbtq Community into communities of color and low-income communities and straight communities. So they were so many families coping with it where where a parent was sick or dying and what was going to happen to those children and what were things I love about you many servings over the years he spent if you had stayed focused on feeding people who are sick, but the 10th keeps getting bigger because whether it's the gay community or communities of color for HIV But ultimately women with breast cancer people with congestive heart failure.

19:54 Seniors with Advanced diabetes or kidney failure. We we collectively you notes to community serving the community is what I often say and we just keep making that that family that Community bigger and and feeding more people. What I what else would love is a food professional in a spaghetti cuz we can talk about this because back to hospitality is that one of the first things we learned was that sick people have no appetite. So if you bring them mediocre food and Community servings now feeds 15 people a day, but if you bring them institutional food, which is what you might think of as a large-scale free feeding program, they're not going to eat it so much like a fun restaurants or a passionate restaurant. You have to find ways to motivate people to eat. And so that starts with beautiful food and whole ingredients local Farm produce.

20:54 Purchasing but really cooking the way our grandparents quotes, you know homemade soup stocks everything from scratch and I always think of that as a as a sign of respect and caring that much like we do in all of our entertaining is that you the food is a gift and it's so heartwarming to be as a host to be giving that food to a guest in my home or guest in your restaurant, but even more so for people who are sick and maybe end of life and feel like the world has forgotten them in and how isolated they are while they're your health is declining and should know that our driver shows up with that beautiful Buddhist is so powerful.

21:41 Also one of my favorites favorites images and I've now but been through three buildings with you, you know from your first place in the south end of the second place in the start of the south end and then loves to make a plane and now into this beautiful building further over in Jamaica same place in Jamaica Plains, but what I do remember is when we did move into the building in Jamaica Plains of you right there planting the chives planting the time you yourself bringing flowers and planting them and making that personal effort to put to put in a garden than that, then we could use you also Forge relationships with Farmers such that you did have the ability in season to have literally farm grown vegetables and things and that's kind of unheard of and institutional cooking. I don't think there's very much this in

22:41 Situational about Community servings cooking except except for the fact that you're extremely efficient at packaging and getting it out getting into people and them two is seen its Evolution, you know the decision to freeze in certain position to send meals so that you can you can extend your reach. So it's for me it's been very interesting to see the progress of community servings over the years for a very small kernel of an idea to a to a fleshed-out agency that could serve more and more people to the boards discontent with the fact that we had a waiting list and constantly striving with our strategic plans to find a way to feed more people and feed them better and into into something that I wouldn't have necessarily been as interested, but that you really love which is just this whole idea of nutrition and

23:41 Nutrition good nutrition and good good food can keep the blood out of the hospital. So basically food as medicine and that's taking a hold to their agency in a whole different direction and not a different direction. But in expanded kind of view point where it's you know, you're doing research and proving to to help providers that Community servings meals should be prescribed just like it just like a medicine and that's been fasting for me to watch cuz I don't I can't I'm always the same when I take the time but he's doing something that I would know how to do. You know, I know how to cook and how to entertain but I don't know how to go, you know serve get this idea out in the way that you have drew experts and nutritionist and whatever to get the food out and to really disseminate that idea and that's been fabulous. I think one of the things I often say is that we've invented a new field of using food in the context.

24:41 Health care and it often times we think of food maybe or healthy eating is being a prevention tool but the idea of actually using food for patients who are already sick and use it in partnership with Western medicine or are prescription drugs Pharmaceuticals, but really thinking about what you're eating at how it impacts your diabetes is your congestive heart failure your dialysis for kidney failure and it's incredibly exciting and we're seeing good response from Health insurers and hospitals and Physicians and it's it's really a whole new field, but I but I but I also want to bring that back to the idea of hospitality because I think that

25:31 With that smart business or smart Healthcare also comes that sense of caring for each other as human beings and recognizing for all of us when we love someone who's sick very sick that it will be the hardest thing we ever do to care for them and you know, many of us are blessed with privileges you no money and time and gave housing but you start to strip those away and you say what if I was caring for my spouse my beloved mother father and I didn't have a stable place to live and I didn't have money and I couldn't take time off from work and I didn't know how to cook the right meal for them and I was worried about losing my kids and you start to see the spiral so you food as as really the sign of respect and caring and for people with people we know and love but also people that we

26:31 Imagine knowing and loving even though they're not part of our immediate circle and I just love the idea that we can bring that same Hospitality that you might happen in your restaurant to Knocking on Strangers doors and saying hey week we see you're struggling and hear some beautiful food. Yeah, we do. I think it's a new building and in some ways drive together. All these different threads of what the agency is trying to do because first of all and as we got a little bit further away from being just an AIDS organization, we could talk to clients the board and the donors or whatever could meet clients and hear the impact of what they do. One of the one of the most wonderful programs is the teaching kitchen where people just out of let's say rehab or prison or who would face barriers to full-time employment are trained to be at 8

27:31 We go into a restaurant or a large any sort of large institutional kitchen and cook for a living and these people who didn't even have a cell phone or place to live and up with full-time career. And that's another thing that that Community servings is done. And the reason that I was reminded of that is when I think of the grand opening and some of the parties that happened around there. We saw many of the students that have come through your program and who are now success stories coming back to ruin all over the new kitchen and the Beautiful surroundings many of these people work in our kitchen in our restaurant because they would graduate to restaurants like ours and I was just so great to see some of these people that I seen you down and out door now success stories, but it we also so we got to in the new building we got to talk to clients. We had to see some of the people who are the students but we also saw that it was very

28:31 It made it possible for you to continue this food as medicine strain and it back where it was good timing because guess what hit right after you moved in. Literally what I forgot when the it was a cold January day that I think when the grand opening and not that late February the pandemics truck and you were finally poised with this new kitchen a lot a lot more a lot more resources to be able to feed many people that I know the pandemic was a great opportunity in a way to see how fast and how well you could ramp up because you were feeding a lot of people during this pandemic specially the beginning that that great right? That's really so we we were so lucky that we built our new kitchens and finish construction and fundraising just two months before the start of the covid-19 demek.

29:24 And I often referred to it as a food campus where you at work or teaching people how to work in the food industry were teaching people how to eat healthy and cook properly to nutrition education. And then and then we're feeding people at doing research and doing Outreach and advocacy. It's it's this wonderful everybody coming together in and use food for good in the community and in in designing the new building, I I really think of it as sort of a community center for food and that again that idea of hospitality you you mentioned, you know, planning the herbs in the in the garden or bringing in flowers to make like that but creating a safe and welcoming space for the community for employees for the volunteers appliance place you and I were talking about it earlier, you know a place of conviviality and joy

30:24 We do we do very serious work. When you think about providing complex medical diets for people who are sick and off and dying, you know, it's silly to care for losing people all the time. But built into that is the joy of of doing it as a community doing it as a group sharing the joy of being a beautiful food and laughter and find find food and wine for fundraising purposes, but I really think it's somewhat unique in the non-profit world to think about Hospitality. Our staff is so focused on welcoming hosting guess we often joked anybody comes into our building asks me. Did you give your staff a happy pill because everybody seems so happy when they're here and I I say

31:25 It's really just that the work is so fulfilling we try to do it with complete respect and expression of a you know, the diverse world that we live in and work with Kali, but you don't to me it all goes back to food it. It's about that sense of love and caring that the food represents for all of us. No matter what our life experience has been. Well, I think that's so true of that building the way the way it was designed and you don't know if you hadn't been in this particular field. I think you would have been an architect or designer cuz you you designed several kitchens for us. I think and you certainly were Seminole in the design of this building but the building is a happy place you come up and and there are beautiful gardens in the just as you approach the building and it's all light and there's a great big communal room that often times. The food is is late.

32:24 Auto on one side, so it serves its if it becomes almost like a living room your living room and you know, it was designed to decide to be a happy place. And in fact anybody who it was there they better be happy in a way knowing you as a boss because of the way they don't belong there if they don't have as I say the hospitality gene, they need to approach it with seriousness the seriousness of basically saving people or at least making their dining weeks well-fed, but at the same time so serious work that you're doing but you sure had better find a way to have a happy time doing it and to do it with graciousness and the kind of care that you would do if you entertain people in your home, it's really the it's not all that different.

33:17 That you went from being a restaurant supporter to being a board member to being you know aboard leader and one of our greatest advocates in the community general what we're both at a time when we leave behind what would you say are you you know, in terms of your work with Community servings what what are the things you're most proud of I would say my my my participation in and helping with the teaching kitchen segment of of your mission because when I was a restaurant owner, I could easily take some of those people and continue the mentoring that started at Community servings and help them to navigate the the world of the kitchen in a way.

34:17 That would make them a professional that could go on to other maybe less forgiving kitchen. So we really love Dad and I love the fact that now when I'm doing development work at Cambridge Center for adult education that we and we hope to start this as soon as our kitchen reopen than yours. Does that we host your teaching kitchen members every 6 weeks or 8 weeks to have a class in World Cuisine. So this is something that a lot of these people have never gone to a Thai restaurant. Let's say or tasted Spanish paella so they come in and not only get to taste it but they get to talk to somebody who is from that country making his or her own cultural Cuisine and they are blown away. They really love it. And it's a it's a little field trip for them. So we we get them to get on the subway and come from

35:17 Two plane to Cambridge to Harvard Square and they make a day of it and really have a good time. So I love the fact that outside of being a board member. There are other ways that I can contribute in real and time ways. So I would like to think that that's the case but I also enjoy even though I miss the first meeting I will enjoy my work with the board of visitors because that's something that's not reading fears for his life and that I think could be really an important contribution to life at Community servings. It's made up of a lot of old friends because along the way David you made a lot of friends and it's been a year and has been a long time exact year. I know you've been 25 years at least while we are you and I were and you know what that first meeting 31 years ago, and I've been working here as of next month 25 years.

36:17 It's it's definitely a labor of love and what I want to think that I enjoy most Beyond just food is is meeting people from different life experiences different cultures. And you know, many of my co-workers came out of Criminal Justice and Nina meaning that I did time that wasn't my life experience, but I so admire what they've accomplished because we had so many barriers put in front of them and often times completely unfair and I Justified barriers and yet to see them still be loving caring people who want to do good in the community, even though they may have struggled in their past or face the justices and

37:16 I feel so blessed to have come from a fairly use a food image of Philly white bread experience as a child into a world that is so multi-dimensional and its food has given me an entree into so many different life experiences. And so many people that I admire that are similar to me and very different from me and ultimately that we can do a it's a bit corny maybe but then we can do good and feel like we leave the world a better place and care for people around us, but I use food and Hospitality to do it which is why I'm so surprised 25-30 years later. I still get choked up when I think about it so I know and end as well you should and kudos to you for being you know, really bad person that they

38:16 1 years ago stepped up and took responsibility and and became you know, so involved even though their game was are lost because you left us to to go via executive director. When I think of you don't Community servings is a place for Second Chances and it's also a place of cultural diversity every kind of diversity. But you know, we didn't even mention the back that you take into account people's cultural backgrounds because of course when people are sick, they want to the food of your childhood. And so a lot of times the meals to go out are you know can have compared to rice and bean component, you know, because that's the comfort food that people are used to so I've learned a lot about different cultures Foods as I have in the restaurant business to but the great thing about me assurances. It is a place that welcomes everybody and that people are feel nurtured enough to feel that they can have a second chance part of having a second.

39:16 Dance and be successful is having people around you who believe that you can do it and that's maybe the most important thing too many servings just for a lot of people to believe that they have another chance with their home at 6 home insect and the food will give him that chance away that they're in your teaching kitchen and think that they can actually have the wherewithal to go apply for job at you know, a steakhouse, you know where the flame is high and the and the stakes are high but damn anyway, it's it's a fabulous thing and I think your legacy is going to be a lot longer lasting than mine in that regard. It said Community servings is an amazing thing. So proud to be involved.

40:07 Well, we all do it together and I also

40:12 I'm very touched is it right now in in the middle of the covid-19 sis, you know, we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of the pandemic and how scary it was in March of last year to think that we wouldn't be able to deliver to our clients and what if the city-state shut us down. What if we had an infection where we risking our own self and our families Health by continuing to do the work and the fact that a year later we we figured out the protocols and you know never missed delivery and and have court. In fact grow by 45% a credit to you and your team. I remember those those brats board meetings and board calls because it was pretty scary when it was happening and a lot had to happen fast. And again that executive function came right out David and you figured it out. It was great.

41:05 I think that.

41:09 Food as it's been so Central to the pandemic to because yes, if if we have if we have privileges were were worried about can we get our groceries delivered? Can we get a slot for a delivery from Amazon or or your local groceries? But imagine how tough that is when you kick it at your home. You don't have a mask you're already at the uncompromising you're worried that the sun was going to bring the virus to you and your family in a frail and fragile. You are so continue to be able to bring food to those people and say we see you you're you're not forgotten. We're going to not only but we're going to keep you safe and we're going to bring a mask in the mule bag along with your food. So yeah, that's great.

42:05 It's really a I don't generally go towards the spiritual but it's it's a very powerful gift that we bring to people and I think my legacy is your legacy because I think we all have done this together over the past 30 years and I I'm so proud of it. The people that I get to work alongside of the lessons. They taught me about you know, what you and your business partner Deborah Hughes have shown me around hospitality and caring and silliness and laughter do I do this could work together has been really have been really special. Hasn't it?

42:50 Made me do it for many more years together. Absolutely. Absolutely while we we we still have but we still have a long road ahead of us. So we agreed we keep doing more together, but we're so grateful to spend the time with you today and and share happy memories important memories, and also great pride of being back. We've had caring for four people in the community who so need what we can offer them in terms of beautiful food and Hospitality. Thank you. Thank you, David.

43:33 That's great.