The line of cars stretched down Center Street, around the corner to Lehua Street and back into the main parking lot of Wahiawa General Hospital. People were waiting 30 minutes or longer to have their car washed, and they looked happy to do it.

Herman’s Car Wash, the wildly optimistic fundraiser organized by Herman Kiili to raise money to save Wahiawa General Hospital, was about as grass-roots, we-the-people, it-takes-a-village as anything ever gets.

One woman showed up first thing Saturday morning and told the volunteers she had driven all the way from Kaneohe to bring her $10 and have her car washed. A little old lady showed up with a hundred dollars in cash but said her car was already clean. The cars being washed were pickup trucks and older-model Fords and lots of Toyotas. The people doing the washing were hospital nurses and Leilehua sports teams and just regular neighbors from the community.

The hospital cafeteria had planned to make between 30 and 50 sandwiches to feed volunteers. By midmorning they had cranked out 150 sandwiches for everyone who came to help.

Both Kirk Caldwell and Charles Djou showed up, sensing the critical mass of real people, the kinds of folks who make their way to the polls on Election Day.

“I told them, ‘Hey, you go support Herman first, and then you can shake hands,’” one volunteer said, chuckling. She watched them. They both donated to the cause.

Hospital CEO Don Olden did the math in his head. He figured they were washing five cars every six minutes. That meant between 36 and 40 cars an hour. At $10 a car, he expected to collect between $1,200 and $1,500 over the three hours, plus an equal amount in donations from people who gave a little extra.

Hospital Facilities Manager Leigh Cruz came to work even though she was on vacation. She put splitters on the hospital’s outside spigots so that each could supply two water hoses. Her phone rang in her pocket: It was the hospital reception desk asking whether there were any more car wash presale tickets. “Nope. All 300 sold out already,” Cruz said. “Tell them they can just get in line and pay when they get up here. “

Cruz surveyed the washing and drying operation, decided all was well and headed into the hospital with a huge plastic jar. “I’m gonna go pass this around inside to the employees,” Cruz said. “Lots of people said they wanted to be part of this but they had to work.”

When the car wash was over, organizers counted what they had gathered. It totaled more than $7,000.

Which is quite impressive for a $10 car wash, but not even a nick in the kind of money the hospital needs.

Of course, $6 million was never the goal. If you’re looking for that kind of money, you lobby government officials, shake down big corporations, tell rich philanthropists you’ll put their name on a plaque. No, this was about putting control back into the hands of the people who need and love the hospital, and making the effort more tangible than a GoFundMe account.

Herman looked at all the wet, soapy, smiling people who had believed in his vision. He beamed. “We’ll have a meeting next week to plan the next one,” he said.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.