Summer activities for Santa Barbara youths don’t have to be about the cost, and Performing and Visual Arts Camp Director Dauri Kennedy is working to make sure of that.

She runs the summer camp, targeted for children ages 8 to 14, and offers a chance for kids to work with instructors who specialize in music, dance, visual arts and theater. She will award three scholarships, worth more than $1,000 each, to prospective campers Sunday night at a free drama, dance and music class the program is holding as a preview to its summer program.

The class, at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Martin Brewer Hall, will feature a dance and music session with Shannon Abero, who performed as a dancer in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, break-dancer Jesse Garcia, dancer Marisol Cabrera, who was Spirit of the Fiesta in 2001, and actress Ashley Lambert.

The project is an effort of the Children’s Creative Project, and the scholarships have been made available through the Towbes Foundation, the Santa Barbara Arts Commission, the Santa Barbara Foundation and the Performing Arts Foundation.

The group has already given out quite a few scholarships, Kennedy said, and other partial scholarships could be available. More than 80 percent of the 60 children who participated in last year’s camp were on scholarship.

“What were offering is a scholarship for the full four weeks,” she said. “We’re offering more than most camps because kids stay here from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s quite a bit of camp time.”

In the first session of the camp, participants will work to produce Seussical Jr., a musical that centers on a cast of characters drawn from the children’s books of Dr. Seuss. They’ll then have the chance to perform the musical at the Marjorie Luke Theater. This session will last from Monday to Aug. 1 and costs $780.

The camp’s second session will focus on classes in hip-hop and Latin dance and music, and will perform in four performances, including in the Children’s Parade and at the Santa Barbara Courthouse. This session will run from Aug. 3-8 and costs $285.

Other classes include folklorico, vocal technique, set design theater games and introduction to capoiera.

Kennedy said that in past years the camps have worked out of Harding Elementary School, but this year the camps will be at Notre Dame School, 33 E. Micheltorena.

“Santa Barbara is so expensive, but it doesn’t cost as much as people think to come to a summer camp,” she said.

— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com.