St. Clairsville Police Chief announces a fundraising event is scheduled to help officer Greg Clark pay for recent medical bills stemming from an unexpected medical emergency. (T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA)

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – The community is coming together after police officer Greg Clark who was recently life flighted to Morgantown due to an unexpected medical emergency suffered while on patrol.

During city council’s regularly scheduled meeting, police chief Matt Arbenz announced that he, recreation director Eric Gay and Mayor Kathryn Thalman are organizing a steak fry benefit to help Clark and his family with his recent medical bills on May 16 from 4-11 p.m.

“We’ll be hosting a steak fry and outdoor concert at the amphitheater. There will be cornhole tournaments, live music, and fireworks,” Arbenz said. “Ruttenbucks will be providing the steaks, potatoes, and salads, and this will be to benefit our officer, Greg Clark and his family due to some medical issues that he’s going through.”

He added that former Belmont County Sheriff Dave Lucas will be providing fireworks from his family business Ohio Fireworks.

Arbenz said that the community support for Clark has been wonderful.

“Planning an event like this is typically not something that anybody wants to do, but it came together so easily because everybody is eager to help,” Arbenz said. “Officer Clark has got a lot of good will garnered in this community, and he deserves it.”

He added that setting up the event was extremely easy because everybody reaching out to him to help.

“We’ll probably have more people that want to help than we can handle but we appreciate everybody’s participation and concern,” Arbenz said.

Steak fry tickets will be $30. The group is also kicking around the idea of having a car show during the event.

Thalman said that she is so proud of how the city of St. Clairsville has reached out to her and Arbenz asking for continued updates about Clark’s current status.

“My phone has just been ringing my phone off the hook about what we can do for officer Greg Clark. Greg is at the very heart of our community. He is a friend to everyone and he’s willing to help anyone,” Thalman said. “I am so heartened by our city – what a wonderful heart we have.”

“Anybody that wants to help, please get in touch with either Eric Gay at the Rec Center myself, or Chief Matt Arbenz, because we want to make this one of the most generous outpourings our community has ever seen,” Thalman added.

Arbenz said that all of his officers have stepped up to cover shifts that Clark would normally have while in the hospital.

“As far as the schedule goes with Officer Clark being out of work for a while, we have our part-time officers who are doing a very good job stepping up and filling in. We have two-man coverage all through the entire month of March already scheduled,” Arbenz said. “I want to extend my appreciation of those guys for stepping up, especially on weekends where we need two guys in here – they’ve filled all of those spots for the month already.”