Many Offer Gift of a Helping Hand or a Prayer

Scores of Americans nationwide celebrated Christmas by helping the homeless and needy with gifts, food and prayers.

Others donated their time. Hundreds of Jewish volunteers in Atlanta filled in at hospitals so that workers could spend the holiday with their families.

“Everybody involved feels that it promotes brotherhood between Christians and Jews,” said Neil Freedland, who was working Sunday morning at Northside Hospital. “My wife and I were saying the other day that when we take off on the High Holidays, there are always Christians filling in for us. . . . This is our chance to help.”

In Tennessee, people left homeless by a tornado that killed one and injured 15 on Christmas Eve were given refuge at hotels.

20 Buildings Destroyed

“Many of them seemed very appreciative,” said Lisa Jezwinski, a desk clerk at a Holiday Inn, where several of the survivors spent the night. The twister destroyed 20 buildings in its 3-mile-long path through Franklin and neighboring Brentwood, officials said.

At Grand Central Terminal in New York City, about 100 people joined a candlelight ceremony for “Mama,” a homeless woman who died there three years ago on Christmas Day. The homeless people then marched to a hotel that prepared a Christmas dinner for about 1,300 needy people.

For Tyrone Scott, 32, one of the marchers, it was his first Christmas on the street. “I think of my family all the time,” he said. “I called them this morning and told them to forgive me for not being there and told them I’d try to get there next year.”

Twelve-year-old Celina Binkley moved into her new home on Thanksgiving but remembered what it was like to be homeless. She was among 25 people at a Christmas Eve vigil in Denver outside a vacant house owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “We’re trying to support the homeless. It’s like these people are our family,” she said.

In the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Clifton Park, worshipers met in the office of the Rev. Bede Ferrara to pray for the nine American hostages in Lebanon. “Christmastime is a good time to make people more conscious of people who are ill-treated and held hostage,” said Ferrara, a Franciscan priest.

Meanwhile, the National Safety Council has estimated that 350 to 450 were likely to die on the nation’s highways during the holiday weekend.

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. said holiday phone traffic could reach a record 47 million long-distance calls by midnight on Christmas, up about 3 million from last year.