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Pleasant View raising funds to improve salon
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Set up in a temporary room, hairdresser Leah Schultz works to style Wilma Argue's hair at Pleasant View Skilled Nursing and Rehab Tuesday morning. The salon on location is currently under remodel, with an upcoming bowling fundraiser for a wheelchair-accessible, height-adjustable sink for the salon. (Times photo: Anthony Wahl)

If you go ...

A bowling fundraiser will be held, to help raise money for a new sink for the Pleasant View Nursing Home's salon.

- When: 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 13

- Where: Leisure Lanes, 2308

6th Ave., Monroe

- Cost: $15 per person, $30 for a couple (includes shoe rental, three games, soda and a treat)

- RSVP: Pre-register with Pleasant View's receptionist at 608-325-2171

MONROE - Wilma Argue, a resident at Pleasant View Nursing Home, likes to get her hair done biweekly or "whenever it needs it."

But for the wheelchair-bound Argue, a shampoo and style isn't so simple. It involves strapping a cumbersome, leaky plastic bag around her neck and sitting at a free-standing sink that Jenn Stollenwerk, life enrichment supervisor at the nursing home, describes charitably as "tippy."

Stollenwerk is in the process of changing this predicament for wheelchair-bound residents at Pleasant View - and wheelchair-bound nonresidents, too. She's raising money for a $4,000 wheelchair-accessible, height-adjustable sink for Pleasant View's salon.

On April 13, she's throwing a bowling fundraiser at Leisure Lanes for the sink. The deadline to sign up is a day earlier, but walk-ins are welcome.

"We don't want it to come out of taxpayer money," Stollenwork said, of the sink.

The salon is getting an overall facelift right now with fresh paint, themed artwork, a new ceiling and better lighting. Once it's done and the new sink is in place, it will be open to Pleasant View residents and the general public.

Currently the closest wheelchair-accessible sink for hair-washing is in Janesville, Stollenwerk said.

Keeping the residents comfortable is only one goal of the facelift. The salon at Pleasant View strives to be an all-sensory experience for customers. Besides hair and nails, the residents can enjoy pet therapy, aromatherapy and a little conversation.

Beautician Leah Schultz, aka "hair psychologist," works with Pleasant View to pair up customers that are friends so they can get their hair done at the same time. A 30-year hairdressing veteran, she often sees 12 or more customers a day.

For many of the residents at the nursing home, many of whom suffer dementia and other serious ailments, the social interaction is just as important as a new 'do.

"The ladies love it," Schultz said.