PHILADELPHIA — Antonio Valdés laughed when he was told last year that the Eagles players hoped their Christmas album would raise $30,000. The players simply wanted their vinyl record — which they feared might flop — to support a toy drive in the city, which is how they connected with Valdés.
“I was like ‘You do know you’re the Eagles, right? Right? This isn’t going to work out the way you think it is,’ ” said Valdés, the executive director of Children’s Crisis Treatment Center.
The album, printed on green vinyl and priced at $75 with the proceeds going to Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, sold out three times last month. A Philly Special Christmas became the region’s hottest holiday gift, topped the Billboard charts, sold for triple the price on eBay, and was far from being a flop.
Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, and Jordan Mailata — stalwarts of one of football’s premier offensive lines — provided the vocals as their voices proved to be on par with their blocking. Connor Barwin, the former Eagles linebacker who now is the team’s director of player development along with running his own foundation, was the album’s executive producer and made the connection with CCTC.
Valdés predicted the album’s success, so he was not surprised when the players stopped at CCTC’s office last month and told him that they raised more than expected before presenting a check.
“So maybe we thought it would be $100,000,” Valdés said. “Then they come out with $250,000. I almost made the mistake of using choice words. I was so surprised. My face was pretty sincere and my reaction. Obviously, this is more money than we need for a toy drive.”
The money covered last year’s toy drive, which gave more than 1,000 kids presents before the holidays. And it is enough to fund the holiday toy drive later this year. But CCTC — which was founded in 1971 in the basement of the Franklin Institute — had more money left. So they talked to the players, who decided to use the rest of their money to pay for the nonprofit’s summer camp for city kids.
Valdés said CCTC runs Philadelphia’s only summer camp “that specializes in working with kids with serious behavioral health challenges.” The foundation said it has been “a safe place for healing for over 25,000 children in crisis” over the last 50 years. They provide services at their center on Delaware Avenue, conduct programs at 14 city schools, and have a location in Montgomery County.
The weekday camp enrolled 100 kids last summer ages six to 12, most of which received services from CCTC throughout the year. This summer, the camp will be paid for by some of the city’s biggest football stars.
“These are kids who are getting kicked out of regular summer camps,” Valdés said. “Even with support, they’re getting kicked out within the first couple days of a camp because of their behavior.”
The CCTC camp, which finds a new location in the city each summer, is staffed by trained professionals and provides therapeutic services in the morning with recreational activities in the afternoon. The campers take a field trip each Friday.
“They earn the Friday benefit. They can’t like not show up to camp for four days and then show up on Friday,” Valdés said. “During the week, they have to earn the Friday trip. But this isn’t like other kinds of camps where if the kid had a bad week, he isn’t going to go. We can’t really do that because these are kids with real challenges. It’s more about they’ve come and they’ve participated. Even if they had bad moments, that doesn’t stop them from attending on Friday.”
The players connected with Valdés after they asked the Eagles if they knew of any toy drives in the city. CCTC has done its drive for more than 20 years as it utilizes a team of volunteers to shop for the gifts and wrap them before staff members deliver them to the children, who are asked before the holiday season to list their top gift choices. This year’s drive, Valdés said, had a “burst of energy” after the success of the record.
The timing of donation, Valdés said, was “frankly amazing” as CCTC is navigating what he called a “transition year” after reopening in full following the pandemic. It has been a challenge to generate revenue compared to years past. The donation, he said, not only supported CTCTC “at a time when we’re having some challenges” but also gave the foundation great visibility from the Eagles and “opened some doors to us.”
The check was a huge benefit, Valdés said. And it was much bigger than he — and certainly the players — expected it to be.
“These three guys decided to do something like this and that already tells you something about them,” Valdes said. “They said, ‘Let’s do this and let’s do this for charity and let’s not make a penny off it.’ Right away, it tells you who they are and everything about our interactions with them, confirmed it. Excited, friendly, fun, good guys. I think it can get overused sometimes to say ‘good guys.’ But it was so apparent with these guys in particular. They just seemed to genuinely love this experience and meeting our staff and kids. It was a real genuine experience.”
