Jason Kelce has a reputation for being charitable around the holidays — but this year he wanted to level up.
In accordance with the release of his holiday charity album, A Philly Special Christmas Party — which benefited local Philadelphia charities for the third year in a row — Kelce, 37, and musical collaborators Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson got in touch with their former Eagles teammate, Connor Barwin, with an unprecedented idea.
“This last year, Jason, Jordan and Lane came to me and said they wanted to do something really big,” Barwin, 38, said in a video posted to Kelce’s YouTube channel on Thursday, December 26. “They wanted to use the proceeds from the record to get a gift for every single kid in the Philadelphia public school district.”
Barwin added, “I initially thought it wasn’t possible. Jason pushed me.”
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With the holiday season quickly approaching, the group got to work on what became known as Operation Snowball.
Two weeks before Christmas, Kelce showed off the impressive fruits of their labor. “We’ve got an entire warehouse being filled with toys,” Kelce said in the video. “I’ve never really seen anything quite like this, to be honest with you.”
Kelce added, “To pull something off like this? Between the toys, the logistics, the schools, the teachers, the faculty. This is a truly monumental lift for a lot of people. I don’t know that this would be achievable in many places other than Philadelphia.”
One week before Christmas, Kelce and the crew enlisted the help of another famous friend: comedian and Saturday Night Live alum Pete Davidson.
“Dude, thanks for coming,” Kelce told Davidson, 31. “Holy cow.”
Davidson helped hand out gifts at Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin High School, where he jokingly referred to himself as an “Eagles WAG.”
Meanwhile, across town at Kirkbride Elementary, Kelce was gifted multiple friendship bracelets by excited students, an obvious nod to Taylor Swift, the girlfriend of Jason’s younger brother, Travis.
Jason made another stop at Alliance for Progress Charter School, where he took the mic and addressed the students.
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“To see the joy on all of your faces makes the whole thing worth it,” he told them. “I hope you enjoy the gifts. More importantly, I hope you have a happy holiday.”
When Jason was told by a local news reporter that some of the students had already said they planned on giving their gifts to their siblings, he joked, “If regifting isn’t in the spirit of Christmas, I don’t know what is.”
Ultimately, Operation Snowball handed out over 1 million gifts to more than 200,000 students across 338 different buildings.
“To let 200,000 kids know, even in the smallest way, that they’re important and people are thinking about them during the holidays. It’s hard to understate how powerful that is,” Barwin said, “I think Jason and the guys understood that. That’s what this was all about.”
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