There are days when she can’t even walk to her car without someone stopping her.

“We’re rooting for you, girl!” her neighbors say.

“Thanks,” she replies, flashing a smile.

Her notoriety comes from five words on a homemade sign.

Jenny needs a new mall.

A handmade poster with those words hangs in a window of Jenny Bunting’s porch at her 922 E. 9th St. residence.

“It started totally as a joke,” Jenny said.

The 20-year-old fashion student at Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny said her best friend, Gabie Hofland of Des Moines, made the signs after they returned from a field trip to the Mall of America in Minneapolis.

“I saw the ‘No New Mall’ signs and asked why Ames couldn’t have a new mall,” Jenny said. “Gabie said she was going to make a sign for me, and I couldn’t believe it when she showed up with three the next day.”

All joking aside, Jenny said she does want a new mall in Ames.

“I think it’s the perfect location for people driving through to stop and shop,” she said. “It’s business that stays in Story County.”

But the sign changed on January 28, after the Ames City Council approved a land use map change: Jenny gets a mall.

Although annexation and rezoning plans have yet to be approved, Jenny’s eyes still sparkle with hope.

But her hope is in something greater than a new mall. Jenny wants a new store, too.

Jenny wants to open a new store and clothing line that features stylish, modest clothes. It will be fashionable and fun and guided by Christian values, she said.

“The kind of guys you attract when you dress [immodestly] probably won’t be the kind of guy you will want to end up with,” Jenny said about more revealing clothes that have become popular.

Kathy Bunting, Jenny’s mother, agrees with her daughter’s ideas.

“How many moms have we listened to looking for clothes and can’t find something modest for their daughters?” Kathy said.