When it comes to all the good work Amate House volunteers have done for Chicago-area social service agencies over the past 30 years, Deacon John Lucas has the spiel down pat.

Since 1984, Amate House has provided more than 700 young adults with the opportunity to serve the city’s underdeveloped communities at over 190 different service sites where the volunteers work 40 hours a week in areas such as education, youth outreach, pastoral ministry, community organizing or social work with the elderly, the homeless or the jobless. Volunteers are able to work full-time, because Amate House covers the cost of their everyday needs. Since Amate’s founding, the volunteers have contributed over 1.2 million hours of service to Chicago.

But when it comes to the good their Amate House experience has done for the more than 700 volunteers? That’s a little harder to quantify, said Lucas, Amate House’s director.

“I have an elevator speech for what we do for the places where we place volunteers,” Lucas said. “I don’t have an elevator speech for the formation of our volunteers. But it’s supposed to be a fifty-fifty deal.”

Most Catholics in the archdiocese probably don’t know about Amate House, an archdiocesan program that invites young people, usually just out of college, to spend one or two years living in community and doing service in exchange for room, board, health insurance and a small stipend. Not only does Amate House fly under the radar, Lucas said, “it’s in the archdiocesan witness protection program.”

But it looms large in the lives of its alumni, said Ed Vogel, the program’s development assistant. A survey of alumni shows that 90 percent work in human service fields, from health care and education to legal aid. Ninety-four percent said their time at Amate was important in helping them become who they are today, and 96 percent would recommend it to a friend.

It was extremely important in the life of 2006-2007 Amate House volunteer Jonathan Wittig, who met his wife, Lisa, in the program. Wittig, who grew up in Texas, had studied business as an undergrad at Loyola University Chicago, with an eye to using his degree in the non-profit world.

He looked at full-time volunteer opportunities in other areas of the country, but a family friend had volunteered with Amate House and spoke highly of the experience. He liked the idea of staying in a city he was familiar with, but working in an area that he never ventured to as a student.

“Going to the South Side might as well have been like going to Philadelphia or Denver or some other city,” Wittig said.

He ended up working with Programa Cielo, a community outreach program run by St. Anthony Hospital. He did everything from teach basic nutrition to elementary school students to doing basic health screenings for community residents.

Lisa Wittig, who was in her second year as an Amate House volunteer when Jonathan joined the program, worked for another program sponsored by St. Anthony Hospital.

Now both of them work for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago and live in an intentional community with other people. Jonathan Wittig is involved with two Catholic Charities nutrition programs, one which delivers food boxes to needy seniors and the agency’s Women, Infants and Children program that allows mothers to choose food for themselves and their children in a store-like setting.

His work with Amate House gave him a much deeper understanding of health and nutrition, Wittig said, and brought him in contact with many of the social service agencies working in Chicago.

“That’s when I got my first involvement with Catholic Charities,” he said. “It really helped in my knowledge of the field. Amate was amazing in terms of exposure to so many good organizations and good people working in Chicago.”

It also cemented his belief in the value of community — “I believe that’s where we have the opportunity to grow and learn from other people,” Wittig said — and he has maintained a strong belief in all the other tenets of Amate House, including Service, Faith, Social Justice, and Stewardship.

That’s something Lucas hears from many alumni.

“They’ll come back three or four years later and say, ‘Now I get it,’” Lucas said.

This year, there are 32 volunteers living in three community houses and working full-time at sites ranging from the Academy of St. Benedict the African to Cabrini Green Legal Aid and Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital.

The volunteers have one community night each week and participate in a variety of formation activities. They also receive an assessment of their strengths and other personal development tools that will be useful not only during their time at Amate House but afterward.

While they are not required to be Catholic, the vast majority are, Lucas said, and all of them participate in Masses and retreats.

“It’s really hard to quantify the spiritual formation,” he said.

For more information about Amate House, visit www.amatehouse.org.