The phones rang off the hook at Turning Point's small office in the Emmanuel Church of the Nazarene on Monday, December 19, as residents arrived to pick up food baskets containing turkeys for Christmas dinner or to ask for help paying their heating bills.

A tall middle-aged man arrived at the door, worry all over his face.

He and his wife had tried to make their food stamps last through the month. They'd asked for help from Turning Point with Thanksgiving. They thought they could stretch their December allotment to Christmas dinner. They have two young children to feed.

Lee MacDonald, program director for Turning Point, a day resource center for the homeless and near-homeless, looked at the man with sadness in her eyes. It was too late to put in an order for a food basket. She'd see what she could do, she told the man, encouraging him to ask for help sooner next time.

Volunteers headed to the freezer and returned with a turkey for the man. They were able to find an extra. His voice quivered as he thanked the ladies in the office, wished them Merry Christmas, and returned to his car.

Turning Point provides 120 to 130 clients per month with everything from emergency food to shelter and counseling referrals to help with utility bills.

"Soup to nuts: food, clothing, rent, heat, car insurance so people can keep getting to work," explained Marcine Fernandes, who serves on Turning Point's Board of Directors and splits the program director's position with MacDonald. "The goal is to keep people from becoming homeless on the streets."

More than 80 families were provided with Christmas meals this year, said MacDonald. More than 300 children will have toys under the tree this Christmas thanks to Turning Point.

Many of those families were repeat clients, MacDonald said.

"They're the poorest of the poor," she explained. "They're all but on the street."

Turning Point couldn't have done it without the outpouring of support it received from the community, MacDonald said.

"This Christmas, we spent very little out of monetary donations" on toys, MacDonald said, "because of the big hearts in Wareham and the surrounding area."

That means the monetary donations can be saved for helping clients with utility bills and other needs.

In addition to the dozens of individual "personal shoppers" who purchased gifts for families in need, Wareham native Adam O'Connor coordinated his own toy drive and donated all of the toys to Turning Point. O'Connor, who is in his mid-twenties, didn't want any recognition for the effort, said Lisa Dankers, Christmas coordinator for Turning Point and daughter of MacDonald.

"We got truckloads from him. ... It made it so I could take on [additional] kids that I [originally] couldn't," said Dankers, who took a day off from work on Monday to finish organizing the toys. "I must have given him a gazillion hugs!"

The help didn't stop there.

MA Children's Relief, coordinated by Wareham resident Sally Morrison, recently donated more the than $7,500 to the organization. That money will be used to help families with children pay for heating bills, MacDonald said.

On Monday, the newly-formed Gateway Chamber of Commerce presented Turning Point with a check for $400 -- money raised in under two hours during the Chamber's Festival of Trees raffle during the Wareham Village Association's Christmas parade.

"These two have worked so hard and the need is so great," Gateway Chamber director Patricia Muraco said of MacDonald and Fernandes.

The Turning Point directors were nearly speechless.

"We just can't tell you how much this is going to help," Fernandes said.

Turning Point rents its small office in the Emmanuel Church of the Nazarene, which it has outgrown.

"This church has been fantastic to us," MacDonald said, before adding: "We need a home. A big building."

Local business owners came through for the organization this holiday season, donating space for storage and organization of Christmas toy donations.

Onset resident Bill Scott donated the use of a vacant Onset Avenue storefront that he owns. Jamie Souza of Eagle Properties provided space in an adjacent building.

"Without them, I don't know what we would have done," MacDonald said.

Though Turning Point has made it through another Christmas season, it seems the work is never done. The need just seems to be getting greater.

"That's why there's two of us doing the director's work," MacDonald said with a smile. "You say, 'Wow,' and do what you can."

For more information about Turning Point or to find out how to help, call 508-291-0535.