Sampson County Agri-Exposition Advisory Board members have a decision on their hands — try and raise the much-needed funding for the popular Class Acts-Sampson CenterStage for Students or dip into endowment funds to offset an almost $4,000 deficit in the budget.

According to reports from officials, released Thursday at the board’s monthly meeting, the Class Acts program is under its budget goal by $3,788.

“We really don’t want to dip into the endowment,” said Ray Jordan, executive director. “If we can go out and knock on doors, that would be better. I wouldn’t advise taking it out of the endowment.”

However, Jordan warned that if the funds aren’t in by the beginning of March, they will have to do just that.

Founded six years ago, Class Acts-Sampson CenterStage for Students is an arts education initiative administered and supported by the Sampson CenterStage Performing Arts Series, the County of Sampson and scores of individuals, businesses, industries and civic organizations.

Since the creation of Class Acts, over 47,211 students have had the opportunity to attend live performing arts productions for free. The Class Acts program has gained statewide recognition for its quality programming, introducing many students to the arts for their first time.

This year, seventh and eighth-grade students will get a chance to see the N.C. Dance Theatre on March 23; the next day, sixth graders will see “One Noble Journey” and ninth graders will see “Tired Souls ... The Montgomery Bus Boycott”; on March 25, first and second graders will get to see the stage play, “The Jungle Book” and on March 26, third and fourth graders will watch Garry Krinsky’s acclaimed “Toying with Science.”

“We have tried to get the word out about the Class Acts program,” said Jordan, “specifically to teachers and educators in our area. Some of the shows we get here are quite exciting for the children ... ”

Every show performed at Class Acts comes accompanied with an in-depth study guide for the teachers, as well as a program, a list of sponsors and tips on how to conduct oneself in a theater.

“Well, what are the teachers saying about it?,” asked board chairman Keith Jones.

“Oh, they love it, and they tell me the kids love it too,” said Jordan. “We recently sent out materials to over 100 or so teachers to see if we could get some support for the (Class Act) programs ... we didn’t get one thing back.”

Jordan noted that the idea of Class Acts was to give the students an opportunity to see performing arts at no cost.

“We want to keep it that way,” he said. “But there are some counties that the students do pay — we do not want to do that. We just need to get out there and talk with the teachers, and school board to let them know how important this program is. We are going to send a form email out to every teacher in the system to get them more familiar with how it all works.”

Jordan pointed out the upcoming N.C. Dance Theatre program, in which the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts is providing $15,000 in financial assistance to bring the show to Sampson County. As part of this project, two educational performances will be performed for Sampson County students and members of the N.C. Dance Theatre will provide three days of residency work within the community as well as one public performance.

“The public performance (on March 21) is going to be hard to sell; I knew that going in,” Jordan said. “But we felt like it was important for the children to have an opportunity to see this show.”

The show for the children will be a scaled down version of the public performance.

“I want to ask you if we can do some sort of discounted rate for that public performance,” Jordan asked the board. “There are 912 seats in that room; our artist fee is $6,000, so we have to offer something to get more people in those seats.”

After some discussion, the board voted to offer a buy two, get one free ticket package to the show.

For more information call (910) 592-7200 or click on to www.sampsoncenterstage.com/classacts.

To reach Doug Clark call (910) 592-8137 ext. 139 or send email to sisports@intrstar.net.