Following the Seattle Seahawks NFC Divisional playoff win over the New Orleans Saints, Kevin Zelko had an idea.

Zelko is a special education teacher at Kimball Elementary, an inner-city school in Seattle but for the past seven years, he’s also worked as a beer vendor at Seattle Seahawks games on the side. When the Seahawks beat the Saints to play for the NFC title two weeks ago, Zelko’s profit was more than usual and he wanted to do something with the extra beer money.

“I decided to put the extra cash aside and buy four or five of my kids jerseys who could never afford a Seahawks jersey,” Zelko told For The Win.

At first, the jerseys were going to be a surprise for just a few students. Zelko thought he’d sneak them into backpacks or onto desks in Secret Santa fashion. But then he asked some friends if they’d contribute and soon, he had enough money to buy jerseys for 15-20 students.

Two days after the Saints game on Jan. 13, Zelko created a campaign on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe to buy jerseys for more kids. He got the word out on Facebook and Twitter and was able to compile about $500. Mashable caught wind of Zelko’s fundraising plan and posted a story about it last week.

“After that, donations went from $600 to $1,000 in about an hour,” Zelko said. “At that point it kept snowballing. $2,000, $3,000. I got on a flight and by the time I landed, it had gone from $3,000 to $5,000.”

As the number continued to grow, Zelko decided to purchase the jerseys — 447 total — for each student ahead of the school’s Seahawks-themed assembly this Friday. The cost? $24,906.

“In order to make sure that every kid had one on (before Friday), we needed to pre-buy,” he said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, he’s raised $20,198. And there’s still a week and a half to go to get that last $4,708 before the Super Bowl.

Zelko is aware that there is question as to why money is going to Seahawks jerseys instead of textbooks or lunches — 70% of the students at Kimball qualify for the federal National School Lunch Program that provides free lunches due to low family income.

“The ability to keep everybody included in something that the entire city is talking about is really powerful,” he said. “The smiles on their faces when they get a Seahawks jersey will be very impressive and many of the kids will remember this for the rest of their lives.”

All extra donations will be used by Kimball to fund “tutoring programs or other academic hardware,” Zelko said.

The contributions have come from all over. Donors hail from Denmark, Hong Kong and Germany. Zelko says he’s even received money from Denver Broncos and San Francisco 49ers fans. Not to mention the $9,000 offline donation from a local wealth investor named Greg Kero.

To top it all off, Zelko was able to use his stadium employee discount to get the jerseys at a discount.

“Being a beer vendor has its perks,” Zelko joked.