This budget was adopted by the PTA’s General Membership at our September 12, 2022 meeting.

Note 1: Four line items were consolidated into the Staff Appreciation Week line item by a vote of the General Membership on March 14, 2023.
Note 2: The following changes were made by a vote of the General Membership on May 9, 2023:

• Move $1,250 from the “Laminator Film” line item to the “Field Day” line item.
• Move $750 from the “School Play” line item to the “Field Day” line item.
• Move $1,000 from the “Winter Wonderland” line item to the “After-School Enrichment Scholarships” line item.
• Move $700 from the “Movie Nights” line item to a new “Fifth Grade Picnic” line item.
• Move $300 from the “Movie Nights” line item to a new “Fifth Grade Field Trip” line item.

💵 Fundraising

🪙 Membership Dues

We had 180 members last year, each of whom paid $5 in membership dues, for a total of $900 in revenue. We expect a similar number of members this year.

💵 Donations

We received about $1,000 in donations last year.

🍂 Fall Fundraiser

These are the potential revenues for a yet-to-be-determined fall fundraiser.

📚 Read-a-Thon

We received about $19,000 in revenue from Read-a-Thon last year. We also incurred a few expenses, which were mostly rewards for classes who read a lot.

👕 Spirit Gear

Spirit Gear is clothing and accessories with the Abingdon Cardinal logo, like t-shirts and car magnets. We haven’t ordered Spirit Gear in years, but we intend to do so this year.

📸 School Pictures

These are funds we receive from our photography vendor for facilitating school photos last year. We can expect to receive about $5,000 for this year’s photos, plus about $2,000 from last year’s photos which is arriving late.

🛍️ Mixed bags

The “Mixed Bags” fundraiser is also known as the Boon Supply fundraiser - funds raised from a mail-order catalog program. We received about $1,500 from this fundraiser last year.

📖 Yearbooks & Lovelines

We received about $1,000 in yearbook sales last year, while spending about $4,000 to have the yearbooks printed. We intend to sell Lovelines this year (messages from families within the yearbook) to help offset the cost.

💸 Retail Rebates

Retail rebates are programs like Harris Teeter’s “Together in Education” and AmazonSmile in which community members “link” their accounts with the PTA, which receives a portion of money spent at the vendor.

✏️ EduKit

Edukit offers prepackaged school supplies that are tailored to meet the needs of each grade at Abingdon Elementary. The PTA receives a portion of sales.

🌯 Spirit Nights

Spirit Nights are scheduled by the PTA at select restaurants and businesses in our area during which they donate a percentage of proceeds back to the PTA.

🎓 Educational Programs

🔔 After School Enrichment Scholarships

We intend to continue providing after-school enrichment classes to students whose families would not otherwise be able to afford such classes.

🍅 Garden

We would like to financially support our school garden to ensure that it has sufficient supplies. These include tools, seeds, and potting soil. This is a new line-item - the garden was generously supported by donations last year, but we could do more with a dedicated funding stream.

Part of this funding is intended to pay for a shed. The school garden currently has no shed. Tools and other supplies are vulnerable to theft and exposure to the elements. We would like to buy a shed as soon as possible to protect our garden tools.

🎭 School Play

Abingdon teacher Ms. Kerry Abbott puts on a wonderful school play every spring. Last year we purchased costumes for the play, which cost about $725. We have earmarked a similar amount for this year.

👨‍👦 Cardinal Kids Mentoring Program

The Cardinal Kids Mentoring Program matches students with staff members. The goals of the program are to build school connections, support academic success, increase self-esteem, and have fun. The funds expended last year were mostly spent on food and t-shirts for mentoring events. The program is managed by Ms. Caty Branco, Abingdon’s bilingual parent liaison.

🌼 Hispanic Heritage Month

The PTA funds a breakfast each year that celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month.

🎨 Art Enrichment

The PTA pays for a few art-related needs:

• Supplementary supplies for art classrooms
• The Reflections program, for ribbons and certificates for participating students
• Support for Abingdon’s annual art show

💦 Field Day

Abingdon’s physical education teachers organize an excellent Field Day every spring, in which students participate in a number of fun outdoor activities. The PTA spent about $100 to support this event last year, and we’ve budgeted a similar amount for this year.

🚶 Let’s Go Club

The Let’s Go Club is a walking club that focuses on health and exercise. The program is managed by Ms. Caty Branco, Abingdon’s bilingual parent liaison.

🏃‍♀️ Girls on the Run

Girls on the Run is a running program for girls in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade.

🏫 Staff Grant Fund

The Staff Grant Fund is new this year. Funds are intended to directly benefit as many students as possible. This allows us to identify new, worthwhile expenditures as the school year progresses.

Community Relations

🥧 Adopt a Family

The PTA collaborates with the Student Services Team to feed needy Abingdon families during Thanksgiving and December. Most food is donated by the community.

🍲 Food Pantry

The PTA intends to operate a food/snack pantry with donated funds this year.

☕ Coffee Events

The PTA intends to hold meet-and-greets with coffee to build community and to raise awareness of the PTA’s activities and mission.

💦 Rising Kindergarten Playdates

The PTA organizes playdates for rising kindergarteners over the summer.

🌈 Tears and Cheers

The PTA organizes a meet-and-greet for kindergarten parents on the first day of school.

🏘️ Neighborhood Playdates

The PTA holds playdates throughout Abingdon’s attendance zone.

🍕 In-person PTA Meetings

The PTA holds most meetings virtually; however, we have set aside funds for an in-person meeting this year.

🌎 Spanish-language interpretation for meetings

The PTA pays for real-time Spanish-language translation of its General Membership meetings. Spanish is spoken at home by about 25% of Abingdon families.

🎉 Events

👋 Back to School Picnic

The PTA organizes a picnic in August to welcome families back to school.

🏠 Open House

The PTA sets up a table at Open House to establish connections with new and returning families.

🍂 Fall Event

We held a Trunk or Treat event last fall, and these funds will likely be used to hold a similar event this year.

❄️ Winter Event

We held a Winter Wonderland event last winter, and these funds will likely be used to hold a similar event this year.

🌱 Spring Event

The PTA organized an International Night event last spring, and these funds will likely be used to hold a similar event this year.

🎓 5th Grade Promotion

The PTA contributes to the 5th Grade Promotion Fund, which is used to celebrate 5th graders at their graduation.

🍿 Outdoor Movie Nights

The PTA would like to hold outdoor movie nights this year.

👋 5th Grade Picnic

5th grade teachers intend to have a picnic for their students to mark the end of their time at Abingdon.

🚌 5th Grade Field Trip

The PTA allocated funds for a potential field trip for 5th grade students.

🙏 Staff Appreciation

The PTA treats Abingdon staff with meals, snacks, coffee, and other goodies at various times of the year as a way of saying thank you.

📎 Supply Buffet

The PTA occasionally organizes a “supply buffet” for staff, in which the PTA buys in-demand school supplies for staff to pick up.

Administrative / Miscellaneous

🧻 Office Supplies

This expense is almost exclusively for paper that the PTA uses to send out flyers in Tuesday folders.

🧻 Laminator Film

The PTA has allocated funds to pay for film for the school’s laminator, which the PTA provided as a gift to the school in the past. The PTA has allocated funds for laminator film for many years.

💲 Dues - Virginia PTA and Arlington CCPTA

For each payment of $5 membership dues, the Abingdon PTA must send $0.25 to the County Council of PTA’s, $1.50 to the Virginia PTA, and $2.25 to the National PTA.

📰 E-mail Newsletter

The PTA uses Constant Contact to distribute its newsletter, the Cardinal Courier.

☎️ Student Directory

This is a new expense as we have not had a student directory in several years. The funds will go to a vendor who will make a student directory available online to the Abingdon community.

⛈️ Insurance

We are required by the state PTA to have an insurance policy. We spent about $180 on insurance last year, and we have budgeted a similar amount for this year.

💲 Transaction Fees

The PTA pays transaction fees for accepting credit cards.

🖥️ Website

Hosting our new website costs nothing, but our domain registration costs about $20 anually.