The homeless went to the gathering seeking food. But the people who served offered something more – hope, love, a way out.

All they had to do was choose.

Some would. Most would not.

Still, the gifts were not wasted. The people who served also turned out to be people who were changed.

Charity on Wheels is a small Orange County nonprofit established three years ago to get the homeless off the street and onto a path of productive life. It is a long, agonizing, frustrating process.

The group was started by Zach Southall, a Juilliard-hopeful classical guitarist turned grind-core band member (think heavy metal on steroids) turned mortgage financing company president turned marketing CEO. Throw in husband, father of four, director of worship arts at Salem Lutheran Church in Orange, a solemn pact with God and you get a glimpse of his almost manic drive to help what he calls his homeless brothers and sisters.

Orange County’s 2015 annual estimate of homeless men, women and children was 15,291. Start looking and you will see encampments all along the Santa Ana riverbed, clearly visible from the I-5 or roads like Chapman Avenue where it passes over the river.

Or stroll through La Palma Park in Anaheim to see clusters of people spread across the grass, their possessions scattered about them. This is the population Charity on Wheels attempts to help.

Southall has walked through the park many times, talking with the homeless, building relationships.

“I can’t do it for you,” the 44-year-old says, explaining his mission. “I can’t carry you all the way there. But if you start walking a little bit, I will get the wheelbarrow and scoop you up, and we’ll go fast.”

Southall knows about adversity. He was rich, and then he was poor.

He was in the mortgage business, and business was booming. He started acquiring: a bigger share of his company’s business – leveraging himself and buying out shareholders – a big house, a $115,000 Brabus Mercedes-Benz, even a motor yacht that he took out less than a half-dozen times.

Then the housing market bubble exploded and took his business with it.

“We wound up losing everything,” he said. “We lost our money, our house, our cars – everything. It was very humbling.”

Looking back, he sees things differently. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Losing everything. It saved my life.”

He remembers a picture of himself taken at the time. “I looked haggard, gray. I was fat. My priorities were all messed up.”

That’s when he and his wife, Michelle, rediscovered their faith. They joined Salem Lutheran Church in Orange.

The church helped in his time of need. He had been sick. The bank foreclosed on his home, and the recovering Southall was sitting on his porch in tears. The moving trucks were coming, and no one was there to help. Then the church showed up. “All these people came,” he said. They helped the family move. “Then they were taking my kids to school, bringing dinner every night.”

That’s when Southall made his covenant with God. “I said, ‘OK, I’m your guy. You totally helped me out here. Wherever you send me, I’ll go. I’ll never say no. Whatever you tell me, I’ll do it.’

“He put this thought in my head that I needed to go out and take care of his children. Homeless, hungry, lost people. Go find them. Take care of them.”

That Saturday he told his wife that he was going to take his sons, buy some stuff and go feed the homeless.

He did that for several weeks. It made him feel good, but he started feeling like he wasn’t having an impact.

That’s when he heard about Mickey Jordan of the Salvation Army. Jordan had started a homeless program but was having trouble with turnout.

“I got you covered,” Southall remembers telling Jordan when they met. “I will bring you volunteers. I will bring you all the food. I will pay for all the shower passes. And I’ll do the worship every week.”

A partnership was born.

Jordan, 33, is a wiry, intense man who thinks deeply about his religion and homeless ministry. He began about 10 years ago by volunteering to travel to the Ukraine for the Rock Harbor Church. He went there to feed and clothe street children.

This was a place, he said, where there was no government money to help children on the street. “Being homeless meant you had nothing,” he said. “You die on the street.”

Jordan spent four years in Ukraine, bringing back a process he later shared with Southall.

It is simple and almost self-evident. It is based on trust, relationships and community.

“No one cares what you know,” Jordan said, “unless they know you care.”

The Jordan-Southall collaboration works this way: You recruit and train willing, caring volunteers. You do outreach within the homeless community, talking and listening. You invite them to a gathering with the promise of food and song. You serve first-rate meals, sit down, eat and talk with them. You listen more than you talk. You invite them back again next week. You repeat the cycle, deepening the relationship. You finally find the right moment when they want change and you help find them a job, a place to stay. You keep on doing this until more people recover their lives.

You also prepare yourself for frustration and failure. In battling the intractable homelessness trifecta – addiction, mental health, joblessness – people often take baby steps forward only to stumble and retreat.

It’s not a one-way street.

“I believe in what’s called libertarian free will,” says Jordan. “We are free to choose.

“The only reason you are homeless is that you are choosing to be homeless. This is very, very, very hard for people who are new to this ministry. This goes against the victim mentality that a lot of people buy into.”

To help the homeless make the choice to change, “People need to be acknowledged,” he said. “We need community. We need to be loved. We need to be known.”

Could it be that simple? It is, at least for the two to four people Charity on Wheels and the Salvation Army collaboration say they get off the street each month.

Ed Carman, 61, lived in La Palma Park and then in his car for months. These days he’s working at a 99 Cents Only store in San Bernardino.

“This guy,” Carman said, pointing at Southall, “helped me find a place to stay, fed me, helped me to make money. Helped me get on my feet. Sometimes people need that.

“It would be just like if I’m on the side of the freeway with my car’s hood up, and I’m waving my battery cables and everybody’s passing. These brothers,” he said, referring to Charity on Wheels, “came by and gave me a boost and got me back on the road. They had the grace of God in them and the other people didn’t. That’s the difference.”

It is not just the homeless who are helped by the program. The volunteers benefit as well.

Jaclyn Kivelin was a volunteer almost from the start three years ago until she left Orange County to get married. She lives with her husband, a Marine, in Twentynine Palms. She returns to the gatherings whenever she can.

She knew Southall from Salem Lutheran. He kept telling her about the Wednesday night gatherings. She went once, loved it and kept coming back.

“I had been a part of other homeless organizations in the past,” Kivelin said. “This one felt more genuine. It wasn’t just about feeding people and staying away from them or offering something and not getting involved in any way. It was about getting involved in people’s lives. Not giving what you wanted to give, but seeing what somebody else actually needed.

“I think Zach has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met,” she said. “He wants to see people succeed and wants to do anything he possibly can. He shows that through his life.”

Kivelin and her husband have a long-term goal of using what she learned from Southall and Charity on Wheels to start a similar organization on the East Coast, where her husband’s family lives.

Listening. Caring. Building trust. Sustaining a relationship.

Paul Moffitt, 48, also has been with Charity on Wheels almost from the start. Southall talked him into coming. Once there, he, too, got hooked.

“It gives you a better understanding of how good you really have it even when times are really bad,” Moffitt said. “And I’ve gone through a lot of personal things in the last couple years with a divorce after 23 years of being married, having to go bankrupt, having to sell my house. You look back and say, ‘This is nothing compared to what these people are going through.’

“I borderline feel like it’s a selfish act. It more is a blessing to me than it is to them.”

Like Kivelin and many of the other volunteers, Moffit is amazed at Southall’s love, devotion and dedication to the mission. He tells this story:

“I watched him one night when we had a clothes night, and a guy was sitting on a little concrete planter. His head was down, and Zach went over to him and said, ‘Hey man what’s going on?’ The guy said, ‘I was hoping you had a pair of shoes because my shoes have holes in them.’

“Zach said, ‘What size are you looking for?’ The guy said ‘12 or 13,’ and Zach immediately takes his shoes off and gives them to the guy.

“Zach walked around in his socks the rest of the night. He played music in socks. He went home in his socks.”

A dozen or more volunteers are in the Salvation Army Church hall in Anaheim every Wednesday night from 5 to 8:30 p.m. They rarely miss. Southall’s mom, Kathleen, provides table centerpieces with candles and fresh flowers. Michelle Southall’s brother, Ruben, is in the kitchen cooking.

With the family, friendships and ongoing relationships, the hall feels like a coffeehouse. Fifty or sixty homeless people are greeted and welcomed. Food is served. People are free to leave whenever they choose. No food-for-religion barter here.

Out in the courtyard, Lauren Scholle, another volunteer, has a line of people waiting for a haircut. A longtime stylist, she stopped cutting hair professionally when her daughter was born. She is now using her gifts to put people at ease and dramatically transform their appearance.

Inside, Southall and others get ready to play and sing.

There is talk, laughter. The volume grows. Someone is chosen to offer a lesson or testimony. There is prayer. The organization passes out toiletries and shower passes that allow people to go to a Salvation Army facility to clean up.

Then it’s time to go.

“Watch over our friends as they venture out into the darkness,” Southall says in prayer.

Then he raises his head, smiles and says: “We love you all so much. Please come back.”

The volunteers clean up the room. Stack the chairs, put away the tables and mop the floor. They form a circle and tell one another what they’ve heard. Who among the homeless has made progress, who has faltered and needs helps. Assignments go out to be followed up during the week.

Southall talks a little about his plans to start another gathering along the riverbed near the Chapman Avenue overpass. And another at the Friends Church in the Orange Plaza traffic circle. He wants this work to spread, grow and flourish. He wants others to benefit from what he has learned.

The group joins hands, prays, and they too go out into the darkness. For them an inner light guides the way.