Coulee Region Woodturners display work at Onalaska clinic, serve community

Coulee Region Woodturners put its work where patients and visitors could actually see it, securing a June display case at the Gundersen Lutheran Onalaska Clinic, 3111 Gundersen Drive, in Onalaska. The case sat on the first floor as people entered, and club organizers asked members to bring one or two pieces apiece so the display would show a wide range of turnings rather than a single style.

The clinic display gave the club a public face outside the shop, and members said it drew “wonderful comments.” Club posts said the exhibit did a strong job of showing both the work itself and the club’s community engagement, which is the part that separates a display table from a real club presence. Coulee Region Woodturners says it welcomes women of all skill levels and serves woodturners from western Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa, so a hospital lobby becomes more than a nice backdrop. It becomes a regional showcase.

That same service streak runs through the club’s wig stand project for cancer survivors. Members design and turn the stands, then donate finished pieces to local cancer centers, which hand them out free to patients. A February 2026 forum post said the club had only 4 wig stands left in inventory after a November 2025 drop-off, a sign the stands move quickly once they reach the center. By March 2026, the club said it had reached 278 wig stands made and donated to the Cancer Center since 2021.

The club also encourages members to sign the bottoms of the stands with both the club name and the maker’s name, a small detail that turns each piece into a calling card for the group as well as a useful object for a patient. The same approach shows up in the club’s other outreach, including turning demos at local art fairs, county fairs and schools.

Coulee Region Woodturners is a local chapter of the American Association of Woodturners, and a 2025 community post said it usually meets on the third Saturday of the month at Luther High School in Onalaska. That mix of monthly meetings, public displays and donated work is what made the June clinic case feel bigger than a housekeeping notice: at Gundersen Onalaska, the club was showing the range of its turning, and at the cancer center it was putting that same shop skill into direct service.