Photos by Brett Ziegler / Special to The Star Caitlin McCandless, 21, a student at California Lutheran University, talks with a homeless man during an outreach event in Thousand Oaks on Friday.

California Lutheran University student Kirsten Lindholm, center, plays with Ricardo, 3, right, and his brother Carlos, 5, at United Methodist Church in Thousand Oaks.

A dozen California Lutheran University students spent Friday night at United Methodist Church in Thousand Oaks, helping out with a program that offers the needy a free meal, overnight shelter and lunch to go.

Though they were there to help others, the students took away from the experience better insight into the plight of those less fortunate. Some of the students spent the entire night at the church, sleeping on cots just as the dozen or so guests did that night.

The personal discovery journey was arranged by the university's Community Service Coordinator Kirstine Odegard, who spent one night last year doing the same thing and learned firsthand that many who showed up for assistance were "people like us."

For 15 years, the United Methodist Church has participated in the community assistance program, operated by Lutheran Social Services. It rotates during winter months among various churches.

On Friday night, after the meal served by St. Paschal Baylon Church volunteers, the students stepped in to chat with shelter guests.

Carlos Lopez, 22, a business and political science major, conceded he was surprised to learn there was "a huge presence of homeless" in Thousand Oaks. "They start out different places, but life brings them together here."

Biology major Brett Waverly, 22, said that his initial perception was that "the homeless were messed up. But these people are hard workers trying to make a difference, support their families."

Once the meal was over and the round dinner tables dismantled, a closet stuffed with cots, sheets and blankets was opened up and emptied for the overnighters. The dozen were about a third of the previous week's guests.

University student Rachel Breen, 19, a liberal studies student visualizing a career in elementary education, had probably the most intense interaction of all. She said her own family lived in a shelter in another state before she was born and that as a teen she chose to stay in a shelter for several months with an aunt and her children, to help out. Breen said she didn't like it when she heard people said those showing up for free meals and needing a warm safe place to sleep at night were lazy, that they needed to get jobs.

"It's not about just alcoholism and mental illness, instead it might be circumstantial. The economy. Divorce. Losing a job." She said her aunt was a "hardworking woman" holding several jobs but unable to make ends meet. Breen said she watched the kids while their mom — her aunt — filled out job applications and went on interviews.

"If I lost my job, the way life is, how long would I last?," CLU's Pastor Melissa Maxwell-Doherty asked. She was among several who cited the additional hardship of a "very expensive" cost of living in the Thousand Oaks area.