Lucy Hardy had a vision for the Lawrence Indian United Methodist Church before she died in 1995.

As one of the church’s charter members, Hardy had watched the congregation grow from its inception in 1963. She was there for the first meetings in members’ house, before there was a building for worship. She was there when the church moved into its current home at 950 E. 21st St., a modest single-story facility off Haskell Avenue, in the late 1960s.

As the years went on, Hardy saw the congregation get too big for the little church building. The dining area was too small to hold all of the people who would show up for fellowship dinners, many of them from Haskell Indian Nations University. Some people would have to sit at a table in the sanctuary.

“It was always her dream to have a bigger dining hall,” said Billy Carey, a current church member. “She wanted the room to grow.”

The church took a big first step Saturday toward Hardy’s vision. After more than a decade of fund raising and planning, volunteers arrived early in the morning and began construction on an addition to the east side of the church, the first renovation since the building was completed in the 1960s.

If she were here “she would just throw her hands up in the air and say, ‘Praise the Lord,'” said Julienne Judd, the pastor of the church.

The project will be no small undertaking. Judd said that professional estimates placed the cost of the renovation at nearly $250,000. So far, the congregation has raised $30,000 through donations and proceeds from its monthly Indian taco sales. Judd said the church was relying heavily on volunteer laborers from other Methodist churches to get construction up and running.

And the addition to the building is just the start of the project. The final plans call for a total renovation of the building’s exterior, replacing the modest white siding and murky window with a bright modern facade. The crowning touch will be a 40-foot tower to replace the simple wooden with peeling white paint that currently greets visitors at the front door.

So far, the volunteers haven’t had much luck with the weather. The start day for construction was postponed twice because of cold temperatures, and the volunteers on Saturday from Worden United Methodist Church near Baldwin got only half a day’s work in before the rain came.

Steve Hicks of Lawrence, far right, helps place a new wall onto the foundation at the Lawrence United Methodist Indian Church at 21st and Haskell. Volunteers worked on the church's renovations Saturday. The church will get a new addition as well as other extensive renovations.

But Judd was hopeful that, with a little luck, the first phase of the project could be wrapped up by the end of this year.

Though church members are glad to see the project get under way, Carey said it was difficult knowing Hardy wasn’t there to see her vision come into being.

“It’s bittersweet,” Carey said. “You just wish we would have had the funds back then to build it so she could see.”

And while Hardy will not get to see the completed dining hall, her efforts to see it built have not been overlooked. Once completed, the new room at the church will be christened the Lucy Hardy Memorial Hall.