Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Fisher-Price officially launched on Sunday the 2025 edition of the Buffalo Bills Little People collector series at Wegmans Food Markets across Western New York.
Now through the month of September, Bills fans can purchase their own Buffalo Bills Little People collector set in-store for $26.99 at Wegmans locations throughout the Buffalo, Rochester/Southern Tier, and Syracuse regions.
To honor the final year at the current Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, Fisher-Price brought fans something special to honor the past and present of Bills football. This year’s set includes head coach Sean McDermott, reigning NFL MVP Josh Allen, as well as Pro Football Hall-of-Famers like quarterback Jim Kelly and head coach Marv Levy.
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Bills fans are at the heart of this partnership to benefit Oishei Children’s Hospital, a long-time partner to both Fisher-Price and the Buffalo Bills. With support from the community, Fisher-Price has donated over $4 million to the Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Foundation since the launch of the first Little People Buffalo Bills set in 2021.
"I've heard the comment, 'Little People, huge impact,' and it's really the case for us at Oishei Children's Hospital for a number of reasons," said Andy Lashua, interim chief development officer at Oishei Children's Hospital in Buffalo. "The resources that this program has generated over the last four years, it's surpassed $4 million with the gift that Fisher-Price made for the set just from last year, and now with the fifth year here, it's really extraordinary."
Mattel will donate $7.50 of the purchase price paid for this set when purchased in-store at Wegmans to The Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Foundation, providing philanthropic support to Oishei Children’s Hospital.
"Children's hospitals, including ours, are not profitable enterprises, in and of themselves. It's not the kind of business you'd want to get into if you were looking to grow and have a successful business," Lashua said. "We rely on philanthropy to make sure we can provide our caregivers with the best technology, with the best care teams, and, of course, make sure that our kids and families, and moms and babies have what they need. So that that impact has been huge, and we've been using that money in real time right along the way.
Lashua says the money contributed to Oishei Children's Hospital through this program is making an immediate impact on the hospital.
"The money is being used immediately to help us upgrade equipment, to make sure the doctors and the nurses and all the caregivers at Oishei have the best of the best. And without philanthropy, that can be really hard to do," he noted. "There's not a lot of extra money when it comes from the operations of the hospital to make these capital investments, so philanthropy makes that possible. And this has been an extremely impactful program, as you can imagine. $4 million is a huge impact."
Lashua points to a number of notable upgrades for Oishei Children's Hospital with the funds from the Little People collectors series over the last five years.
"One of those is something called an ECMO machine. Ultimately what the machine does is it becomes the heart and lung for a patient, a child that is either suffering from an illness or had an accident and is not able to breathe and oxygenate their blood on their own. The hospital had one a few years ago, but the demands had increased and they needed a second, and equipment like that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars," Lashua noted. "Imaging equipment is another one, equipment that our surgeons use in the operating room to help with navigation, neuro navigation. These are all things that philanthropies helped with."
Lashua strongly feels the local connection between Western New York and Mattel and Fisher-Price (with headquarters in East Aurora) makes a huge difference for the hospital.
"The way this came to be was very much local. It was two board members of ours, a woman named Karen Balduf and another woman named Ashley Meganck, who were on our board in 2021. Karen worked for Fisher-Price and Ashley worked for the Bills at the time, and they came together to make this happen. This is a local effort from global brands. The Buffalo Bills and Fisher-Price, now through Mattel, these are global brands, they're global businesses, and their reach is extraordinary. That's what you're seeing through the impact of this," Lashua explained.
Not only is the local connection everything, maybe even more importantly, it's the support of Bills fans and the community purchasing these toys on a yearly basis.
"They've shown up every single year and done that," Lashua noted. "The first few years, there were lines out the door at Wegmans to do that, and Wegmans being another important local partner that has taken on that effort to sell these and get them in the hands of Bills fans. And we know how charitable our Bills fans and our bills community is, and this is just another example."
Lashua knows people are always clamoring for anything Bills-related, given the team's success over the years, especially if it includes anything with Allen as part of it.
"This is a collector item as well, there's a limited quantity. Once they stock the shelves this year, this won't be available again, just like you can't buy the set from a few years ago. That's created a lot of demand," Lashua added.
Another reason Lashua feels this collectors series is always a hit in Western New York is the cause, and the connection for so many Bills fans to Oishei Children's Hospital.
"Children's Hospital is an important asset in our community, and for some, it's also very personal. It has had a personal impact on themselves or family members. So there's a lot going for it, and I just think a really cool product," he said.
As for Lashua, he, too, is excited for this year's edition of the Bills Little People collectors series. It's the strong local component to it, especially with the inclusion of the current Highmark Stadium in its final year of use in Orchard Park.
"That means so much to so many of us that grew up here, that have been going to that stadium for decades. It's really cool to see that as a part of the set this year, and I think that is going to do a lot to draw more attention to it," Lashua said. "And having Marv and Jim in there this year, I expect there to be lines once again this year.
"The scoreboard that we all know so well, and then you flip it over on the back, it's got the Ring of Honor on there with Marv and Jim, it's got the red helmet in there, got Marv's famous sweater. Everybody seems to be going back to the '90s stuff, and it hits all those marks. It's something that I think almost every Bills fan would love to have."
And it's only fitting, too, that the 2025 Bills Little People set was released on Sunday, which was also Levy's 100th birthday.
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