As their Wednesday deadline approaches, officials at St. Luke AME Church, Ninth and New York streets, are scrambling for some last-minute cash to help the church survive.

The plan, officials say, is to create a Langston Hughes Interpretive Center there, and they’ve been searching for grant application fees to help it come to life.

“We’ve already contributed personally,” said Bill Tuttle, chairman of the church’s Second Century Fund. “If we have to, we’ll dig deeper.”

But Tuttle hopes that isn’t necessary. Now just $4,000 short of their goal, he hopes this last fundraising drive is enough to get the $24,000 total needed to apply for a much larger Heritage Trust Fund grant.

The cash has been coming in. The church received promises of $250 Saturday morning alone – from the likes of Lawrence Mayor Boog Highberger and high-powered local developers.

If they reach their goals – and win the $90,000 Heritage fund grant – church organizers can begin a larger project than the Hughes project itself: refurbishing the 100-year-old church from the outside in.

St. Luke AME Church, 900 n.Y., needs ,000 before Wednesday to apply for a state grant that will aid restoration of the church, which was attended by Langston Hughes and was recently named to the National Register of Historic Places. The state Heritage Trust Fund grant would provide 0,000 for the restoration of the church's foundation and drainage system. Napoleon Crews, left, executive director of the St. Luke AME Second Century Fund, and Bill Tuttle, fund chairman, are in the church's sanctuary on Saturday.

The total project will cost almost $2 million from beginning to end and will start with the foundation, which a developer’s study recommends.

Saturday, Tuttle and church director Napoleon Crews walked around the old building, pointing out changes that they envision making.

The foundation is the priority. With a basement full of Hughes’ artifacts and interactive equipment, the area needs to be air and water tight.

After that, the work should head upstairs, where old brick walls have bowed and cracked.

Hopefully, Tuttle said, the community will see the worth in restoring the old place. After what Tuttle described as a struggle, the building was placed on the National Historic Register last year, standing as a monument not only to Hughes, but also to the history of Lawrence’s black community.

Inside the church, Tuttle recalls a Hughes story about his time in the church, from 1910 until 1915.

For most of his childhood, Tuttle said, Hughes was told about the struggles of his grandfather, who fought alongside John Brown during the Civil War.

His grandfather fought for his freedom, Hughes knew. In Lawrence, forced to live a life segregated from whites in the town, he decided to speak out in the name of equal rights.

“He wasn’t prepared to stand for that,” Tuttle said.

And now, nearly 100 years later, Tuttle and Crews aren’t prepared to see his childhood church fall apart.