It gets more special all the time: The Eagles Christmas album has now raised $1.25 million

By any measure, A Philly Special Christmas — the holiday album that turned Philadelphia Eagles offensive linemen Jason Kelce, Jordan Mailata, and Lane Johnson into Santa hat-wearing singing sensations — has been a resounding success.

Just as the Eagles earned the NFC’s top seed and are now a victory away from the Super Bowl, A Very Special Christmas has reached #1 on Billboard’s compilation albums chart.

The $75 green vinyl LP sold out of three pressings. This month, it was announced the project had raised $250,000 for the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, which initially aimed to use the proceeds for a toy drive. The center will also be able to fund a summer camp now.

But as impressive as all that is, the quarter-of-a-million figure represents only a fraction of what the album has gone on to raise. Because now that proceeds are in from sales of the LP’s third pressing — which was much larger than the first two — the number has grown to five times that amount.

A Philly Special Christmas has now raised a staggering $1.25 million. And now the Eagles trio of Kelce, Johnson, and Mailata, plus music producer Charlie Hall and executive producer and former Eagles outside linebacker Connor Barwin, have $1 million to share amongt two dozen Philadelphia-area charities.

The biggest beneficiaries will be Philadelphia School District teachers, who will be aided through DonorsChoose, a crowd-funding platform that fulfills educators’ wish lists for much-needed school supplies.

“We wanted to do another something big,” said Barwin, who has philanthropic experience via his Make the World Better foundation, which rebuilds playgrounds and rec centers across the city.

“Kelce wanted to do something with teachers in Philadelphia. And we realized that at about $250,000, we could fulfill every current outstanding wish list in the city of Philadelphia public school system. Which we just thought was incredible.”

» READ MORE: Fly, Santa, Fly! Eagles Jason Kelce, Jordan Mailata, and Lane Johnson to release ‘A Philly Special Christmas’ album.

Cori Lewin of DonorsChoose said the Philly Special funds would meet the needs of 400 current projects requested by Philadelphia teachers as of Thursday, with money left over to provide matching funds for future wishlists.

Teachers with outstanding requests for supplies, which Lewin said run the gamut from notebooks and crayons to computers and 3D printers, were notified Thursday morning that their wishes had been granted.

Money will be distributed in smaller increments to a total of two dozen charities selected by the Philly Special principals and the Philadelphia musicians who played on the album.

The list of recipients include Center for Black Educator Development, the Philadelphia Midwife Collective, Bartram’s Garden, Ars Nova Workshop, Mighty Writers, Prevention Point, and Canine Partners for Life. A completed list can be found at phillyspecialchristmas.com.

» READ MORE: Every new song from the Eagles Christmas album reviewed. As they’re released.

That the album’s proceeds will clear the city’s DonorsChoose projects is no small thing. Teaching in the nation’s poorest big city, in a historically underfunded school system, means that educators often have to get creative to provide students with the basics, things parents often can’t pay for unlike in wealthier districts.

Case in point: A project posted by a teacher at Muñoz Marín, a K-8 school in Fairhill, seeks $933 for backpacks.

“Most students walk to school; this means carrying their belongings in bad weather, forgetting their important items at home (some on purpose due to embarrassment), losing important school assignments like homework and forgetting necessary school materials for their day,” the project’s description reads. “If each student had their own book bag to keep their important materials in it would set them up for academic success each and every day.”

Another teacher, from John B. Kelly Elementary in Germantown, asked for $413 to stock a food pantry.

“I’m happy to see that [the album] is going to benefit other organizations,” says Antonio Valdés of the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center. Besides the financial benefits, he said, “All the publicity and media attention helps us get the word out about all the work we do:”

Barwin stressed that everyone affiliated with the Eagles is focused on defeating the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. But he allowed for the possibility of future Philly Special musical projects in the off-season.

Philly Special’s fund-raising success has stunned its creators.

Hall, the War on Drugs drummer who produced the album — and whose debut album as a solo artist, Invisible Ink, is due in April, said he imagined Philly Special “to be this fun thing we did that was going to live forever and sell enough records to raise a little dough.

“I sat there many nights with my wife just hoping we would be able to cover our costs and raise 30 or 50 thousand dollars,” Barwin said. “So to be able to sell more than 25,000 records and donate over a million dollars to Philly organizations ... it’s been quite a different outcome than what we thought.”