Some ethnic minorities may feel forgotten in Ames, but a group called Breaking Down the Barriers is working to address that problem.

“We’re really there to make the Iowa State experience as good as possible for everyone. This is for all minorities, and that’s the reason that we’re really still working on how people are treated,” said Murray Blackwelder, vice president for External Affairs.

Breaking Down the Barriers is a group of ISU administrators, faculty members and students, as well as Ames residents, dedicated to increasing the awareness of minorities in the Ames community.

Blackwelder said Breaking Down the Barriers especially looks at three aspects of minorities’ experiences in the community: how minorities are treated by businesses, how minorities are treated by law enforcement and how minorities adapt to the community when they first enter the university.

The committee was formed about three years ago by Blackwelder and Linda Dasher, then president of the Ames Chamber of Commerce.

Blackwelder and Dasher serve as co-chairs of Breaking Down the Barriers.

There are several key programs the committee sponsors, including a program in which minority student athletes ride along with Ames police officers at night, a training program for area business to increase awareness of consumerism as it applies to minorities, a job placement program for minorities and a seminar concerning race and ethnicity, which will be held in the spring.

Blackwelder said the committee used to sponsor a freshman mentor program, but the program was merged with a program ran by Vice President for Student Affairs Thomas Hill.

Hill said he thinks the primary benefit of the Breaking Down the Barriers committee is to increase the awareness of the “little things” that make a difference.

Often times, Hill said, shop owners may not carry items that minority students may need or property owners may encounter students with living habits different than their own.

“Little things like those will make the environment a little more inviting,” he said.

Kevin Geis, president of Brenton Bank and the Ames Chamber of Commerce, participated in the consumerism program sponsored by the Breaking Down the Barriers committee.

“I wanted to identify if we were having problems with diversified issues and wanted to educate ourselves to know … if we were part of the problem or part of the solution,” Geis said.

Geis said his company has experienced many benefits as a result of the training.

“We became and are still becoming more sensitive to ethnic purchasing patterns and their particular style of doing business,” he said. “We also have found that we have become more sensitive about comments that we may make about people in general.”

Geis said although the program was a large time commitment, he would recommend it to other area businesses.

“I think that it brings the whole community into a better focus of the people who are in our society, finding the appropriate ways of dealing with people who have a different lifestyle than we do individually,” he said.