Charlie McAvoy delivers pies, Mayor Wu showcases turkey carving skills at Pine Street Inn

It would be impossible for an objective observer to fail to note that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu can carve the heck out of a turkey.

On Thursday morning, Wu joined Boston Bruins Defenseman Charlie McAvoy, State House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, and Boston City Councilor John FitzGerald at the Pine Street Inn in Boston to slice turkey and serve a Thanksgiving feast to the shelter’s many guests and residents.

The annual event, according to Pine Street Inn President and Executive Director Lyndia Downie, is a bittersweet one for the residents there, as most of them would much rather be in a permanent home surrounded by loved ones instead of spending the holiday at a homeless shelter in the city’s South End.

“Our hope for everybody is that they are not here next year, because they are in housing,” Downie said.

Downie said that Pine Street Inn has seen remarkable success in the last year, having opened their 1,100th housing unit and pushed the number of “long-term” homeless residents staying in a Boston shelter to well below the national average.

“We’re about 9% — the national average is 22%. So we’ve done a really good job of bringing those numbers down,” she said.

Not only that, Downie said, as of the last count taken in the city, officials found one segment of the homeless population entirely absent.

“When we did the census this past winter, we did not have a single veteran on the street,” she said. “Now, we have veterans in shelter, but not a single veteran in the street, and our placement rate for vets is about 15% higher than the national average.”

McAvoy, as he has for several years, delivered hundreds of pies to the shelter, and said that he feels like he’s getting better at turkey carving after a few years of giving it a go. This year, he said he’s thankful for the opportunity to “give back to the community that means so much to me.”

“Everybody here gives their time on a day when they could be home celebrating with their families,” he said of the Pine Street Inn staff.

Markey said that starting Thanksgiving day at the shelter demonstrates that in Massachusetts, we’re “just one big family” where “everyone takes care of everyone else.”

Markey specifically credited the staff at Pine Street Inn who are there for those in need everyday of the year, holidays included.

“I’m thankful that Pine Street Inn is here for everyone who needs a place to go on Thanksgiving,” Markey said.

Pine Street Inn was prepared to provide more than 2,000 Thanksgiving meals on Thursday, after cooking over 120 turkeys — that’s around 1,100 pounds of oven roasted bird —  a thousand pounds of mashed potatoes and the 50 gallons of gravy required to cover it, 140 lbs. of stuffing, 250 lbs. of cranberry sauce, 580 lbs. of mixed vegetables, over 2,000 dinner rolls, 500 lbs. of fruit salad, 56 gallons of apple cider, 50 whole pies and 1,500 mini pies.

Carving the turkeys wasn’t a race or contest, but if it were, Mayor Wu won handily.

Even with her two sons’ standing underfoot and “helping” in the way that small children do, Wu showcased some serious knife skills and was standing in front of a bare-bones turkey carcass in a matter of minutes. She managed to do this without accidentally slicing either child’s probing fingers and while quite pregnant.

FitzGerald’s carving was methodical, if slower than Wu’s, but he still managed to neatly clean the roasted bird he was assigned. Michlewitz gave it the old college try, and seemed to know his way around a roasted turkey, but appeared more focused on joking with Wu’s boys than winning any race, unofficial or otherwise.

McAvoy, indeed, seems to have upped his carving-game over past years, but could probably use some more time on the ice, so to speak (his drumstick removal method, in particular, needs some off-season work).

It’s fair to say that it’s probably a good thing Markey is a U.S. Senator and not a deli-counter worker or butcher, if the hacked-to-pieces turkey mess he left behind is any indication. Despite his valiant and voluntary efforts, it quickly became clear that the Malden native could be in serious political trouble — if there were any chance he might be required to out-carve a challenger during his 2026 reelection campaign.

In addition to providing a holiday meal at their South End headquarters, Pine Street Inn operates 39 permanent housing locations in the city where staff were scheduled to deliver Thanksgiving meals, and the staff planned to find people still living on the street to offer food service on Thursday, according to the organization’s spokesperson.