Millions of Americans traveled hundreds of miles to share Thanksgiving with friends and family. For those far from home and those without homes, charities and restaurants opened their doors and hearts.

Traditional parades in New York, Philadelphia and Detroit drew tens of thousands of spectators bundled up against rain and chilly temperatures Thursday.

President Clinton flew by helicopter to the Camp David presidential retreat in eastern Maryland for a quiet family dinner with wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea.

Around the country, an estimated 10,000 volunteers served 62 tons of turkey, 28 tons of potatoes and 41 tons of stuffing for the homeless and poor at some 265 rescue missions, according to the International Union of Gospel Missions. The missions served Thanksgiving dinner to an estimated 175,000 people.

“What we envision is a banquet table from coast to coast where the most vulnerable in the country are invited to sit down with those people that care about them,” said Phil Rydman, a spokesman for the group, based in North Kansas City, Mo.

At the Atlanta Braves’ ballpark, Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes dished up the dressing as the state’s first lady plopped turkey on plates for homeless people at an annual feast given by civil rights activist Hosea Williams.

Even prosperous people can’t feel fulfilled without donating some of their time, Barnes said. He became the first governor to direct the event. Williams was recovering from surgery removing a cancerous kidney.

Williams has staged the “Feed the Hungry and Homeless” event for 29 years. Organizers said Thursday’s dinner had enough turkey and fixings to feed 35,000 people, including many homebound elderly people who received delivered meals.

In Rocky Mount, N.C., people who lost their homes to flooding — including many residents of nearby Princeville, founded by freed slaves after the Civil War — sat down to dinner in large tents with Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York City.

“We don’t want America to forget that even though the waters are gone, the conditions remain the same,” Sharpton said during his sermon Thursday morning at Rocky Mount’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. “We were also heartened when we heard that the council voted in Princeville to rebuild, to not run and not leave.”

Princeville’s 2,100 residents survived the flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd, but 850 of the town’s 1,154 homes were destroyed by the water tainted by raw sewage and chemicals. Some residents took their dinner plates back to trailers in their temporary housing.

In Portland, Maine, restaurateur Natasha Carleton invited in the homeless, students and families with nowhere to go. Volunteers and restaurant employees worked through the night to prepare a festive meal — including pearl onions in bechamel — for more than 600 people. Those who could afford to were asked to give a $1 donation to charity.

“Lots of people walk by my restaurant every day, collecting bottles and pushing carts, and they always look in the window. Now they get to come in and be waited on,” said Carleton, whose restaurant is on the same street as several social service agencies.

Shannon Ricles in Yorktown, Va., and Gene and Phyllis Greene in Columbus, Ohio, shared their homes and holiday meals with strangers. Ricles invited some of her son’s Navy shipmates and others based at the Norfolk Naval Station. The Greenes welcomed foreign students from Ohio State University.

In New York, parents with small children lined up in the rain to watch the annual Macy’s parade and its array of 25 giant balloons.

In Philadelphia, 3-year-old Wolf Trumbauer was initially scared by a towering Cat in the Hat balloon, but by the time a giant Garfield the cat balloon passed, he was happily watching from a lawn chair on the curb.