African-Americans from around the Ames area are hoping to get the attention of the local Wal-Mart store the old-fashioned way: with a letter.

The catch is, they’re not mailing it. It is being hand delivered by a group of college students.

Tanya Duvall, a senior in sociology from Omaha, Neb., and her friends will hold a protest today at noon.

The students are upset that the Ames Wal-Mart won’t carry African-American hygiene products.

The women say products such as dark-toned pantyhose and makeup are rare commodities in this area, and they wonder why the nation’s largest department store is not catering to their needs.

Duvall is composing a list of products members of the African-American community are asking for. She has set a deadline for when the products should appear on Wal-Mart’s shelves.

She said she will be accompanied by a sizable number of black students.

Duvall said she has made announcements at meetings and passed on information through word-of-mouth to inform people of the event.

“We’re not there to tear up the store. I’m here to deliver a letter,” she said. “If anything happens, it won’t be because of the students.”

She said she is not anticipating any resistance from store officials.

Wal-Mart officials don’t anticipate problems, either.

“We’ll let them be there; everyone has a right to speak their opinion,” said Brian, a member of Wal-Mart’s management team who would not disclose his last name. He said the store has no plans to increase security for the event.

“As long as they’re not blocking customers,” he said, “there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Wal-Mart fills its shelves according to the population demographics of the community. More than 5 percent of the area’s population would have to be African-American in order to stock the products Duvall wants. The Story County African-American population is about 3 percent.

But Duvall said the store is not looking in the right place. “They’re not including the college students when they count black people,” she said.

The store’s hands might be tied as far as ordering its own products, but they have found a way to partially work around that roadblock. Brian said the Ames store is planning to transfer some products from Des Moines stores to Ames; he said they might be in the store in time for today’s protest.

“We’ll try doing the best we can,” he said, “but it’s probably not going to be enough. In Des Moines, people would still complain that we weren’t carrying the right things.”