“High and tight,” Richard Magnuson said as he eased into the makeshift barber chair in a back room at the Loveland Resource Center, his left foot in a walking boot.

“You got it,” said volunteer hairdresser Ginny Gischel as she snapped a yellow smock around his neck before sorting through her selection of clipper guards. “What do you want for a length on top? Do you want one on top? So zero up to a one. Is it OK if I trim your eyebrows, too?”

As she switched on her clippers, Gischel asked Magnuson about his latest doctor’s appointment for his foot, which is getting better, he said. Then she tossed out the same question she had asked every client who sat in her chair that morning: What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food?Magnuson, who cooks his own holiday dinner, launched into his recipe for sweet potatoes with pineapple and marshmallows.

“You put it all together and mash it up, then add brown sugar,” he said, as Gischel’s clipper buzzed through his hair.

Magnuson’s high-and-tight was the final of about a dozen haircuts Gischel completed Nov. 25 during her latest twice-monthly visit to the center, where she has been offering free cuts and trims to people experiencing homelessness since 2023.

For many who come through the doors, her visits provide a rare moment of care, dignity and conversation at a time when Loveland’s homeless services have been under strain.

“I want them to feel just like they would if they were coming into my salon,” Gischel said afterward. “It’s a special connection that we all share with our hairdresser. And I feel like human touch is so important, and I might be the only person that touches them in a month.”

Hairstyling is a career Gischel seemed destined to follow from birth. Arriving on her grandmother Virginia’s birthday, not only would she be named Ginny in her honor but would also follow her trailblazing footsteps into the beauty industry.

“My great-grandfather, her dad, gave her a loan in the 1940s, during World War II, to start her own beauty business, which was a rare thing for a woman then,” Gischel said.

Gischel, who was born and raised in Berthoud, remembers getting manicures from her grandmother at about age 6, before Alzheimer’s disease set in and led to her death a decade later, not long before Gischel left for the Aveda Institute in Florida.

January will mark 18 years as a professional stylist for Gischel, with stints in Italy and locations across Colorado before she settled near her hometown. She currently sees clients at True Colors Salon and Day Spa in west Loveland, and, outside of work, keeps busy raising three sons, ages 8, 15 and 19.

The opportunity to volunteer at the LRC came to Gischel at an inopportune moment. In June 2023, a former LRC counselor told her the center’s previous volunteer barber had recently died and finding a replacement had proved difficult. Although it was just weeks before her wedding, Gischel said it felt like she was being called to the job by a higher power.

“You don’t say ‘Sorry, God, I’m planning my wedding,’ ” she said. “So I decided I was going to answer the call.”

LRC guests start signing up for an appointment with Gischel on the Friday before regular visits, and most times the list fills quickly. By the time she arrives Tuesday morning, she said, she often feels like a kindergarten teacher greeting her class.

“Everybody says ‘Miss Ginny, Miss Ginny, I’m on your list today,’ ” she said with a chuckle. “The gratitude here is through the roof.”

A typical day at the LRC for Gischel starts about 9 a.m. and ends about 2 p.m., with as many as 22 haircuts, but more typically 13 to 15.

“Mind you, it’s not like I’m doing a full service where I’m, like, shampooing and blow-drying,” Gischel said. “It’s usually pretty quick.”

Gratitude for Gischel’s services and her company is real, especially for Edmon Lessley, who is working his way back to stability after alcohol addiction left him without permanent housing. Now employed, he said his regular sessions in her chair give him more confidence on the job.

“I got a haircut today, and I’ll go to work on Thursday feeling professional and not feeling like a homeless bum with no hope,” he said. “She’s awesome. She’s a blessing.”

LRC’s program manager, Dylin Cruz, echoed those comments and said Gischel’s visits always seem to lighten the mood in the center, before and after the cutting begins.

“She just greets each person with love,” Cruz said. “She treats them like she would in her salon, and they come out looking better than they walked in — even if it’s the same haircut they always get. They’re just happier to be with her.”

Gischel acknowledged that some LRC clients have their good and bad days — what she calls “quiet haircuts” — but said she has never felt unsafe while working at the center. What weighs on her more are the stories people often carry in with them.

Mindful of that, she tailors conversations carefully.

“They know I’m not there to fix their problems; I’m there to fix their hair,” Gischel said. “But it’s just the power of listening to somebody. Sometimes their problems are solvable on their own, and they just needed to hear things out loud.”

Her ability to relate to those she interacts with at the LRC, she said, comes partly from her own past struggles with alcohol abuse.

Gischel has been sober for seven years, and she said recovery taught her the importance of listening without judgment, which she makes a point of offering to everyone who sits in her chair.

“I know what a struggle addiction can be,” she said. “I think that is a huge part of my addiction recovery — that connection to others and showing them this is what a recovering alcoholic looks like — I’m happy and free and my life isn’t in a miserable place.”