Thursday morning Juanda and Leroy Maxwell got the phone call they had been waiting months for.

The National Park Service called to tell them historic Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church was awarded a $500,000 grant.

“She said, ‘I just called to tell you your foundation has been funded for the entire half a million dollars,’ and I just started screaming, and she just started laughing,” she said. “We have just been screaming and praising the Lord and just being so happy.”

The grant is part of the NPS’s African American Civil Rights Grant Program. It was appropriated by Congress through the Historic Preservation Fund. A total of $7.5 million was awarded to 39 different projects in 20 states. Brown Chapel was one of three sites in Alabama that were awarded money.

Maxwell said the grant was applied for by the Historic Brown Chapel A.M.E. Preservation Society Inc., which is a foundation that oversees preserving the historic site that played a pivotal role in the Voting Rights Movement in Selma.

“We recognized that the church had some dire needs in repairs,” she said. “My husband as chair, he rounded us all up. He was the glue behind all of us coming together to do this because the work was needed so much.”

The grant was applied for in September, so Maxwell said the wait has been nerve racking.

“Our nerves were just kind of on edge about it, but we knew that we had put the work in,” she said.

The other members of the seven-person foundation are Al Perry, Aubrey Larkin, James Dawson, Johnny Moss Jr. and Nancy Sewell.

Maxwell said the church was in desperate need of funding because there are not enough members to support the kind of work the landmark needs.

“It is just a blessing for the church because we don’t have a large membership,” Maxwell said. “The money is needed because people come in and out of the church constantly, but they’re not really members, so there is not enough there to support the repairs. This is just a Godsend for the church.”

The money will be used for a number of repairs, and Maxwell hopes to get started on them as soon as possible.

“We’re going to do the electrical system, we’re going to do the roofing, we’re going to do some underpinning, we’re going to do the balcony,” she said.

“Hopefully there will be enough left over after that to do the outside covering of the windows. The windows are fine, but the covering is real milky and has deteriorated. The church really needs some work.”

Maxwell said the grant is a blessing not just for Selma but for everyone who comes to see the church.

“This is really good for Selma, it’s good for our church and our congregation, but it’s good for all of us,” she said. “I can’t get over it. I’m just so happy and bowled over that they didn’t forget us.”v