Saquon Barkley handed this little girl a touchdown ball. Here’s what it meant to her.

Ellie Kunkle has been a Birds fan since the day she was born. Before she even left the hospital, she had an Eagles pacifier in her mouth.

But even with multiple Super Bowl wins in her lifetime, the 11-year-old from Lehigh Valley hasn’t experienced a better Eagles moment than she did in the Birds’ Oct. 26 game against the Giants, when Saquon Barkley handed her the ball after he scored on a 9-yard pass play in the second quarter.

“My husband is not an autograph seeker type of person, so he didn’t bring any pens or anything,” Ellie’s mom, Christine, told the Inquirer. “She was telling me, ‘Mom, I was so close to the players, but dad didn’t bring a pen.’ I told her, just try sticking your hand out for a high five. When she came home, she was like, ‘Mom, I was just sticking my hand out to give him a high five, and he handed me the football!’ She couldn’t believe it. She was so excited. She couldn’t believe it.”

Kunkle has attended about 10 Birds games, her first one when she was just 3 years old, close to the end zone where her dad has season tickets. She was there for last year’s snow game in the divisional round and the game that clinched Saquon Barkley’s 2,000-yard season, but this one will be hard to top.

The photo of her receiving the football, along with the football, is going up in their basement — and she insisted her photo be larger than the photo of her dad high-fiving Nakobe Dean after his first career interception.

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“It’s incredible for me to see the bond between my husband and my daughter,” Christine said. “They both just love football so much. They love going over the stats. They love going over the data. It’s something that we all talk about every night at dinner. It’s just something that we bond over, and our whole entire downstairs is just dedicated to the Eagles. We’re always looking at those pictures and talking about those memories, and it’s just, it’s amazing.”

That Barkley, Kunkle’s favorite player, is from nearby Whitehall, Pa., just makes it even better. Kunkle is just the latest lucky kid to be recognized by Barkley, who regularly gives away footballs to and signs autographs for young fans.

“When I score touchdowns and I give away footballs, I try to find kids,” Barkley said. “Sometimes you’ve got grown-ups try to take it from the kid. Last year, I gave it to a kid, and I went to hand it to them, and a grown-up tried to grab it; I had to move his hand and give it to the kid. But there’s no special story behind it. I just scored and went to find a kid, and she happened to be the one I saw.”

Those moments are just instinctual for Barkley, but they’re life-changing for young fans like Kunkle, who will carry that memory for a long time.

Ellie’s not expecting that moment to get topped any time soon, but she is making her first trip to see the Birds play on the road on Monday in Green Bay, her long-awaited Christmas gift from last year.

“I don’t know if she’s ever going to top this moment, but I don’t think she even wants to,” Christine said. “She’s just so happy to be able to watch the games.”