Nation Takes Break From War Wariness as Volunteers Warm Lives of Homeless : Holiday: Demand for charitable services doubles in some places. Looters in Florida raid a welfare office and steal toys intended for the needy.

Volunteers warmed the lives of the sick, poor and homeless Tuesday as Christmas gave Americans a merry break from wallet-watching and war wariness.

“I cannot change the world, but I know for a fact I can make a difference,” said Iqbal Emamudeen of Orange, N. J., a publicist for a chain of drugstores. He was among about 135 volunteers serving Christmas lunch to hundreds of homeless and needy people at a church agency in downtown Newark.

In New York City, more than 1,000 homeless people turned out in a hotel in mid-town Manhattan for free meals of turkey and stuffing.

Some charitable organizations in the Northeast blamed the economic downturn and government cutbacks for a doubling in the demand for services. But, in New Hampshire, food bank organizers said charity was keeping pace.

“The donations have picked up tremendously,” said Thomas Murphy, volunteer administrator of the Monadnock Area Food Bank in Peterborough, N.H.

In Chicago, Department of Human Services crews went in search of the homeless in 20-degree temperatures.

Greg Ervin, 25, who became homeless two weeks ago when his family split up and abandoned its South Side apartment, has been sleeping on old carpeting outdoors.

“Even though I’m homeless, Christmas is still the same,” Ervin said. “I’m going to see my family.”

Charity took a holiday in Miami, meanwhile, at least for a while. A mob of looters raided a Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services office on Christmas Eve and hauled off hundreds of toys intended for Dade County’s needy.

“It was chaotic,” department supervisor Jacob Bery said. “People were just walking out with boxes of toys, bags of toys. There were loads of people, 25 to 30 of them. It was like a mob. From children to grown-ups--old, middle-aged, young, you name it.”

But Christmas came for the needy nonetheless when the 4th Marine Division, 8th Tank Battalion, loaded a van with goodies it had received from a car dealership and took them to Health and Rehabilitative Services supervisor Linda Griskin.

“I was looking around for another needy organization to donate them to, and that’s when Linda called,” Staff Sgt. John Ferguson said.

Across the nation, a powerful winter weather system answered many dreams for a white Christmas but was accompanied by deadly cold that made the holiday a test of survival. Weather-related deaths since Dec. 18 rose to at least 81.

Snow covered the ground in most of the northern third of the nation, and more was falling in the upper Midwest and plains states Tuesday as another arctic cold front pushed through the region.

High winds caused blowing snow in much of Minnesota, cutting visibility to near zero in some areas and sending the wind chill factor--the way cold feels to the skin--to as low as minus 60 degrees.

Albuquerque, N.M., had its coldest Christmas on record at 1 degree. Eugene, Ore., had a record low of 15, the seventh day in a row that the city’s morning low matched or set a record.

Temperatures made for an average December day in New England, with 18 degrees in Albany, N.Y., but an uncomfortably chilly one in the South, where the low in Atlanta was about 15 degrees.