Issue with perch_content_custom and cards-layout

So, I am aware, that this layout isn't called "cards-layout", but my english skills are obviously not advanced enough to find a name for this kind of layout:

This is what I normally do, in order to get what I want:

<?php

    $i = 0;
    $column = Array();

    foreach( $array_of_items as $item) {
        $column[$i%3] .= $item[contents];
        $i++;
    }

?>
<div class="column_1"><?=$column[0];?></div>
<div class="column_2"><?=$column[1];?></div>
<div class="column_3"><?=$column[2];?></div>

Now in Perch, I have a multiple region, where I wanna do the exact same thing. But, when I try to retrieve the contents with perch_content_custom, the html still gets displayed. I could do

$array = perch_content_custom('region', Array(
    'skip-template'=>true,
    'raw'=>true
), true);

and then iterate over the $array with foreach. But then I'd have to reuse the code I already have in my custom template. Isn't there a way to retrieve the contents of a multiple region as an array without skipping the template? I tried

<?php

    $column = Array();
    $i = 0;

    $array = perch_content_custom('region', Array(
        'each'=>function($this) {
            $column[$i%3] .= $this;
            $i ++;
            return $this;
        }
    ), true);

?>

But this doesn't work.

So, does anyone have any Idea how to solve this? I'm fine with just reusing the code from my template for this particular case and iterating over the raw data, but I was just curious, if this is also solvable without sacrificing the template.