NBCEF’s $75,000 Patronicity push to make New Buffalo’s home field universally accessible – by July 17
A summer Saturday at the Bison Field looks like a lot of things at once. T-ball cleats in the dust. A grandparent walking slowly along the third-base line. A high school senior taking a swing under stadium lights. And, starting Memorial Day weekend 2027, a Northwoods League summer collegiate team, Dune Coast Baseball, playing for a town that has waited a long time for its own summer ballpark.
For that picture to be the full picture, the field has to belong to everyone.
That’s what the New Buffalo Community Education Foundation (NBCEF) and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation announced today: a Patronicity crowdfunding campaign, patronicity.com/bison, to complete the redesign of New Buffalo’s community baseball and softball complex as a universally accessible space. The goal is $75,000 by July 17, 2026. If the community gets there, the MEDC unlocks a matching grant through its Public Spaces Community Places program, plus an additional $25,000 boost reserved specifically for projects that meet universal-design standards. That match doesn’t land without local donors first.
This is the campaign Dune Coast Baseball is standing behind. Here’s why.
A community asset, not a team asset
Co-owner Brian Williams is direct about who the field is for: “This field will be home to Dune Coast Baseball, but it’s also a community asset – used by the 150 kids who play New Buffalo Youth Sports and by the students in the River Valley and New Buffalo high school baseball programs. It’s an investment in social infrastructure. We’re building a place the community can gather and support the aspirations of our young people.”
The complex sits on the New Buffalo Area Schools campus and the adjoining Oselka Park. The dollars raised through this campaign will complete the playing-field buildout with universally accessible grandstands and bleacher areas — the parts that turn a place where games happen into a place where everyone can show up to watch them.
Co-owner, Tom Rowland, on the impact of NBCEF: “The New Buffalo Community Education Foundation is excited to be participating in the Public Spaces Community Places Program with the potential to receive a matching grant from the MEDC if we hit our fundraising goal of $75,000. With the help of our community and supporters, we plan to complete the construction of stadium seating around our newly renovated field.”
How the match works
Every dollar from a local donor moves the project closer to the goal. Cross the line by July 17, and a state matching grant lands in New Buffalo – money that doesn’t arrive unless the community first puts up the campaign. In other words, a contribution to the Bison Field doesn’t just fund a bleacher: it pulls additional state dollars into the project that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
How to back it
Visit the campaign and donate at any level: patronicity.com/bison.
When Dune Coast Baseball takes the field for the first time on Memorial Day weekend 2027, the bleachers everyone sits in will exist because this campaign got across the line. Help get it across.
