A fundraising and memorial event will be held on July 11 at New Florence City Park in honor of Police Chief Tyler Beasley, who passed away on April 30 at age 36.

The Chief Mason Griffith Foundation will be organizing the event, which is called the Beasley Family Fundraiser. The event starts at 4 p.m. with food and auction, followed by a candlelight vigil at 8:30 p.m. A fireworks display will follow the vigil.

A memorial service was held for Beasley on May 15 in Columbia, where the police chief lived. Angie Koepke, the director of daily operations of the Griffin Foundation, said the July 11 event will give New Florence and Montgomery County residents an opportunity to honor Beasley, who was a member of the New Florence Police Department for three years.

“Talking to some of the city officials, they felt like since he was so respected in the community, there was not like a closure for Montgomery County and New Florence,” Koepke said.

Koepke said the event will also help support Beasley’s wife, Jennifer, and his three children.

“Tyler was the sole breadwinner,” she said. “He didn’t have life insurance. He was young. It was surely an unexpected type of death. He leaves behind his wife and three children, one of them happened to be special needs and pretty much non-verbal. We’re trying to make sure that they could stay in the current home because it’s within traveling distance for his therapy. We want to try to make the kids comfortable and less change for them.”

Koepke said she talked with city officials about having the Beasley Family Fundraiser at the end of June.

“We kind of made mention that we need to do something, but when Tammy Powell from City Hall said, ‘I can get the concession stand donated to you guys and if you want to do food at the fireworks,’ I’m like, ‘Count me in,’” Koepke said. “We’ll get volunteers to come up and help set up some tables so we can get silent auction items.”

Beasley worked at the Reynolds County Sheriff’s Office and the New Haven Police Department before joining the New Florence police staff in September 2023. A plaque was made in Beasley’s memory and is located at New Florence City Hall. It was presented during the New Florence Board of Alderman meeting on May 11.

The Chief Mason Griffith Foundation was founded in 2023 and is named after the Hermann police officer who was shot and killed that same year. Its mission is to support first responders and their families during a crisis.

“It was very helpful for us when Det. Sgt. Mason Griffith was shot and killed in the line of duty,” Koepke said. “It was a little bit of a different situation. But we had people from all over come and support the family. That’s how we started our foundation. It’s through that mission of helping all first responders. We quickly found out that there were really no programs to help the families if it wasn’t a line of duty entry or death. Those people were kind off to the side. There are really no honor guards or any way to celebrate their years of service.”

The foundation has been selling memorial shirts and tumblers for $25 each to help support the Beasley family.

“We raised enough to fully pay for his whole memorial service,” Koepke said. “The family didn’t have to pay for that. We have raised enough to be able to pay their monthly needs of what they need just to survive. It’s very important that we’ll continue on. We’ll come up with some other things as we go down the road.”

At the Beasley fundraiser, attendees can donate items for the silent and live auctions, become an event sponsor and volunteer to help before and during the event.

“If the community can donate any kind of thing for silent auction and if they can donate funds to help to do this fundraiser and donate in honor of Chief Beasley, that would go into their account and that will continue to help us pay their bills each month until we can get them where they are stable,” Koepke said.

For more information, contact Koepke at 573-308-0577.