By Thea Jarvis

Twenty-two-year-old Anne Jacobson has been volunteering for a long time.

As a psychology major at Marquette University, she worked with Campus Action teaching literacy skills to Milwaukee’s homeless. She spent spring breaks on a Catholic Worker farm, assisting a rural mountain doctor or feeding the hungry in an urban soup kitchen.

Ms. Jacobson studied hard enough to earn a spot at the University of Wisconsin’s medical school in Madison. She had heart enough to defer that for a year and sign on for a year-long stint with the Sinsinawa Dominican Apostolic Volunteer Program.

She ended up in Atlanta, in the little house behind the Catholic Center that St. Vincent de Paul calls home.

“I knew I wanted to spend a year doing something different, a change of pace” before beginning medical school, she said. The Sinsinawa program “clearly stood out” among others she had learned about.

Ms. Jacobson stands out among others, too. Her golden curls frame a girl-next-door face with a warm Wisconsin smile. Clear blue eyes reflect her youthful maturity and compassionate spirit. She doesn’t predict her future, but she’s sure of her direction.

“This is a year of opportunity, a chance for me to make a difference,” she said, adding that the year off will help her explore the possibility of a permanent career in inner city or rural medical care.

“I have wondered if I could do this for the rest of my life,” she said candidly.

Since arriving in Atlanta Aug. 17, Ms. Jacobson has worked briefly at the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store in Chamblee and as a regular caseworker at the downtown office. She fields phone calls from other caseworkers, and dispenses groceries to folks whose food stamps are late or have been stolen.

Recently, she helped a father of five who had been referred to St. Vincent’s by the Department of Family and Children’s Services.

“He was really concerned that he’d get enough food for his family,” said Ms. Jacobson. Filling grocery sacks with canned fruit and vegetables, pancake mix and powdered milk, peanut butter and jelly, sugar and salt, frozen hot dogs and bologna, she was able to ease his mind.

A phone conversation with a pregnant 18-year-old “struggling to make ends meet” was disturbing, yet gratifying, Ms. Jacobson said, especially since the young woman was so close to her own age.

“You could just hear the fear in her voice,” she said.

Although the case was eventually referred to a local conference and is essentially out of her hands, Ms. Jacobson feels it was “a help for (her) to talk to someone about it, to get the story out in the open.”

Such real-life drama is the nuts and bolts of St. Vincent de Paul’s downtown office, where the phone rings non-stop and people’s needs are the number one concern.

“It’s frustrating because you want to help everyone you can,” said Ms. Jacobson, but the “limited budget – very limited” means needs sometimes go unanswered.

The oldest of four children, Ms. Jacobson said her parents, both teachers, have been “really supportive” of her choice of ministry and accompanied her in the drive South this summer.

Vincentian work in metro Atlanta is her first experience with the Society. Executive director Sheila Bissonnette continues to give her “a sense of ministry” about what she is doing, she said, and co-workers have been helpful and informative.

Ms. Jacobson lives with fellow Sinsinawa volunteer Megan Dunbar, and Ohio native and anEmory graduate who works at the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store, and three Sinsinawa Dominican sisters. From their house in midtown Atlanta, Ms. Jacobson often cycles the three-plus miles to work.

For the remainder of her volunteer year, she expects to continue as a caseworker and help with Vincentian special projects.

“I’m looking forward to a winter where the temperature doesn’t get below 30 degrees and there’s not six feet of snow on the ground,” she laughed.

She looks at the year ahead as “an enhancement to my medical education, not a hindrance to it,” adding that some friends have wondered if she would, indeed, return to her medical studies.

“I see my future as being very open. I don’t want to put limits on it before I have to.”

She admits her biggest challenge is “seeing the great need there is and wanting to make a difference,” realizing at the same time “how big the problem is.”

Being part of the Vincentian family has helped her see it’s possible to make a difference if you stick with it long enough,” she said.