MIAMI - In the fifth pew from the back of the Coral Gables Congregational Church, Luanne Allgood sits with four homeless men on one side of her, two on the other, and listens to flutist Eugenia Zukerman's interpretation of Mozart's Violin Sonata in F Major. Allgood, who has played the bassoon since she was 11, knows this music, knows its power.

Just two hours earlier, the homeless men she has taken there, 18 in all, had shopped at Burdines, their nickname for the room at the Miami Rescue Mission where donated clothes are available. Some have dressed up for the first time since before their lives fell apart.

Every quarter, Allgood introduces a group of men living at the mission -- up to 30 at a time and more than 1,000 over 11 years -- to the other side of life, to ballets and museums and theater.

"I believe that art and love heal," Allgood says. "These are men who have every reason to give up. I just hope by surrounding them with beautiful things and trying to change the way they think of their lives, I can make a difference."

These cultural excursions -- Allgood arranges free admission and pays for other expenses -- are integral to a 16-week enrichment course she founded called Creative Living, even more than the charitable exercise of a well-intentioned woman facing a roomful of hardened men, gutted by drugs and alcohol and mental illness, looking for a second or third chance.

On the theory that first you clean them up, then you make them whole, more and more rehabilitation centers across the country have begun to incorporate fine art and other cultural components into their recovery programs.

"Our members are seeing the value in artistic expression which helps people reconnect to their lives," says Phil Rydman of the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions of Kansas City, which represents 300 missions, including the one in Miami. More than a third have launched such programs run by volunteers who believe that the fine arts are as critical as food or faith.

Allgood uses her connections -- she has played with chamber ensembles and orchestras in Miami, Atlanta, Cincinnati and Kalamazoo and owns a commercial-production company -- to immerse the Miami mission's clients in environments that cultivate their sense of humanity.

There's nothing overtly saintly about Allgood. She simply sees poetry in the broken and understands the power of escaping time and place -- if only for an hour of songs and prayers and painting on a Monday night before lights out at the mission, or for two hours of horseshoes and tug of war at a picnic in Matheson Hammock Park.

"It's hard to believe a nice lady like that is willing to spend time with a group of losers like us," whispers Calvin Hartry, a Georgia alcoholic and grandfather of five, snatching at the single tear that streams down the bones and folds of his 58-year-old face. "People normally run from people like us. ... Why would anyone invest in us?"

Allgood's students participate in the mission's Alpha curriculum, which focuses on faith-based education and life and job skills.

"Every person here is broken by something. We have to keep peeling the layers back to get to the core issues," says Russell Barbour, director of the mission's centers. "Luanne works on the other side of it to help make them whole."

Allgood plans a half-dozen outings for each new group. Over the years, her students have been to the Lowe Art Museum and the Miami Art Museum and to plays at Florida International University and the University of Miami. They have visited an Overtown studio to paint abstracts with artist Bayunga. They have listened to professors of drama and acting, the trumpeter who played the opening fanfare for ABC's "Monday Night Football," a nutritionist and a professional storyteller.

Still, her commitment isn't always easy.

Some men are not interested in learning or are too bitter to embrace change.

"There's been so much ugliness in their lives, and they need so much," Allgood says. "So, a lot of them come in with their arms folded and staring straight ahead. They don't want to be there. And some never open up."

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