By Thea Jarvis

Young men and women serving Atlanta with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps are completing a year of scaled-down, communal living and grass-roots activism this summer.

Part of "JVC: South," which has similar regional programs in Brownsville, Texas, Dallas, Houston, Mobile, New Orleans and San Antonio, the Atlanta volunteers cast their lot with the city's homeless, hungry, immigrant and unemployed and now unabashedly embrace the JVC: South tongue-in-cheek motto: "Ruined for Life."

"There's no way it's out of my system," said Cherry Ann Ballard, 26, who finishes a year at St. Luke's Community Kitchen in August and believes she'll never be the same again.

She remembers thinking the motto, emblazoned on T-shirts for sale at JVC orientation last year, was hopelessly inappropriate. But after almost 12 months as a Jesuit volunteer, she planned to buy herself a shirt at the group's exit retreat this month.

A graduate of Lincoln Memorial College and a social services counselor with the state of Tennessee before joining JVC, Ms. Ballard has been helping feed the nearly 600 people who come to lunch at St. Luke's each weekday. She has also assisted in procuring their identification papers, Social Security checks, MARTA cards and food stamps in the church's counseling office.

Her tour of duty has convinced her that she will "definitely be working with the homeless in some way" when she leaves JVC.

Living on a stipend of $65 a month, housed in the Grant Park neighborhood with other volunteers, Ms. Ballard said the JVC year has been a time to stretch her limits.

"I have grown up. I'm not the same person" who came to the program with wide-eyed, small-town vision.

"Everything comes together this year. It makes you question every relationship you've had, makes you more aware" of what is important, she said.

Her JVC roommate, Agnes Brennan, agrees.

"I've grown a lot this year," said Ms. Brennan, 22, a volunteer at the Midtown Congregations Assistance Center (MCAC), which gives emergency help to the working poor.

Focusing on herself, keeping a journal and reading more reflectively "hasn't been easy," she said, since introspection has meant examining personal issues, relationships and "anything I haven't dealt with" in the past.

A graduate of Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ms. Brennan worked in soup kitchens and shelters in her native Savannah, where she and her family were active at St. James parish. The youngest of eight children, she made the transition from rookie volunteer to seasoned counselor once her knees stopped knocking.

"I was a nervous wreck" the first day on the job, she recalled. "I didn't know what to say" to folks who came looking for the food, MARTA passes and social service referrals MCAC regularly dispenses from its Spring Street office.

Now, says Ms. Brennan, personal ties to such people are the best part of her work. Earlier forays into community outreach hadn't allowed in-depth relationships with those she served, but JVC's year-long commitment encourages such friendships.

With other volunteers, she spent 24 hours on the street in solidarity with the homeless during Holy Week this year.

"It was unbelievable," she said. "I couldn't have stayed out another night. People thought we were homeless -- we looked homeless! It made you understand how these people must feel."

A sense of solidarity with the homeless influenced Greg Payne's decision to sign on for another year with JVC. The 23-year-old Holy Cross alumnus and native of Medfield, Mass., has been a shelter coordinator at the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless this year and next year will be the organization's community liaison as well, interfacing with the Atlanta City Council and the General Assembly of Georgia.

"There may not be a better place in the country than right here," Payne said of the Task Force. His volunteer year has sparked interest in a political career that surprised him.

"I wasn't thinking of politics at all before I entered Jesuit Volunteers," he said, though he had worked with the homeless in Boston and Medfield prior to JVC. Now, "It's time to go deeper into this issue of homelessness," one he sees "skyrocketing" in numbers, growing exponentially.

Manning the Task Force hotline and coordinating shelter requests has been pressure packed. "People think of JVC as a year off," he said. "It's one of the most stressful years of one's life."

Juliane Hare, who has spent her JVC year with Catholic Social Services' Migration and Refugee Services, echoes Payne's thoughts.

"The hardest part is an abstract struggle," she said, thinking about "where I really fit in and where I want to be."

The 22-year-old Washington, D.C. native worked with Guatemalan migrants in Indiantown, Fla. Over spring break of her junior year in college and has a degree in French and political science from Vanderbilt University. At CSS, she has found language barriers between herself and her mostly African and Vietnamese clients were meant to be broken.

"I've gotten very good at acting things out," she laughed. "I can work my way around anything."

Her duties have included everything from helping clients obtain disability payments and permanent residency applications to teaching English as a second language and finding clothing at St. Vincent de Paul's thrift store.

"There's a lot of variety in what I do," she said. "People make the difference."

The JVC year has afforded her an insider's view of the refugee crisis and attendant asylum issues.

"I've learned a lot about how political this whole situation is," she said. "It's been educational and disturbing."

One plus for Ms. Hare and other Atlanta volunteers has been the opportunity to share personal and work-related experiences in a community setting. Two JVC homes in Grant Park have housed a total of nine volunteers linked by weekly prayer, common meals and simple lifestyle.

"It's a different kind of support," Ms. Hare said. "It's a closer tie than just living with people."

Volunteers expresses regret at leaving JVC, which has had such a strong impact on their lives, and concern that values learned in JVC won't be lost.

"I'm scared to get into professional life and get so wrapped up in the job," said Agnes Brennan. "But, she vows, "I won't let it happen."

Are she and her fellow volunteers ruined for life?

"I think that's true," she smiled. "You'll never forget what you've seen and learned" in JVC.