Ballet training and then some. (News).

Children across the country who dream of dancing but have trouble paying for pointe shoes and other dance supplies now have somewhere to turn. Children's Fine Arts Academy in Orangeburg, South Carolina, is offering assistance together with nonprofit Everything Dance shop, which recently entered its second year of operation.

The shop and school were launched by Shirley Fields-Martin, a dancer and teacher who moved from Manhattan to South Carolina after her husband got a job in Orangeburg. "I discovered that there were talented kids here who weren't getting any instruction," she says, noting that high illiteracy and poverty rates meant few residents were exposed to the arts. She soon persuaded the local school district to set aside studio space and provide a small subsidy for a ballet program. District funding cuts eventually drove it out of the public schools. But in 2000 Fields-Martin reopened the program in her large 1920s-era home.

Everything Dance is also located there and serves needy dancers in the area and across the country. (The only items it won't mail are pointe shoes. But it will send funds to out-of-state dancers so they can be fitted at their local dance shops.) If customers can afford dance supplies, the money they spend at the shop is a donation. But if a young dancer's family has trouble making ends meet, they are given whatever supplies they require. "We just ask them to fill out a form," says Fields-Martin. "If they meet the economic level and we have what they need, they'll get it. If we don't have something in stock, we'll try to find it for them."

Supplies have been donated by Bloch, Body Wrappers, Capezio, Eurotard, Prima Soft, Grishko, Mirella, Natalie Dancewear, and Danny's Warehouse. Computers to track stock and sales were provided by Essence magazine. Fields-Martin says it wasn't difficult to get businesses on board. "I just called the suppliers and said, `You have to do this,'" she says.

Fields-Martin is used to providing low-income students with more than just classes. Children who are accepted into the academy train four afternoons a week. "But thanks to The Charles H. Leach II Foundation, we are also able to feed them three days a week and help them with their homework on two days," Fields-Martin says. "With more funding we'd offer food and homework help every day."

To request supplies or make a donation, call 803/539-0314 or write to Kimberly Savoy Anderson, Children's Fine Arts Academy, 930 Boulevard Street, Orangeburg, SC 29116.