When Ryan Leithead’s son Cayden died at just 7 days old in 2022, he channeled his grief into making something. Alongside West Pikeland Township officials, Leithead worked for weeks, mostly in freezing rain, to build what became Cayden’s Corner, a sandpit play area at Pine Creek Park’s playground.
A dedication sign, with a photo of Cayden’s little hand encircled by his parents’, notes that the hope is “that this sandbox sheds some light on his memory and brings joy to many children for years to come.”
It offered a glimmer of light amid a tragic, unexpected loss. Leithead’s oldest son, 6, and daughter, 2, play there often. “It’s kind of like they’re playing with their brother because they’re there,” he said.
But now, just a few years later, Leithead, 37, worries the memorial will be swept up in proposed playground renovations, which are the subject of several grants and public fundraising efforts to update the decades-old equipment and make the site more accessible. Final plans haven’t been released yet, but officials say it could involve relocating the sandpit and replacing the memorial.
For Leithead, it feels like losing Cayden again.
“It was built by those who loved Cayden. It kind of goes into that term of ‘grief in action,’” he said. “I spent the first year after he died kind of focusing on this — right, wrong, or indifferent, that’s how I grieved. So it’s a memorial built by his father.”
The elected board of supervisors will vote on the proposal and plans “when they are available,” said Joan Blatcher, township manager. Completion of the full renovation is anticipated for mid-2027, she said.
“The intention behind Cayden’s Corner was to provide a memorial for Cayden Leithead. If the sandpit is relocated, it will continue to be called Cayden’s Corner,” she wrote in an email. “The benches and a dedication explaining the reason for the name have always been part of the plan for the new playground.”
Leithead isn’t against renovating the playground. When he helped bring the sandbox to life, seeing the whole playground renovated was something he hoped for. His work with the project is also how Leithead became involved with the township’s parks and recreation committee. But he struggles with the idea of relocating or altering the memorial they built in the early days of that grief.
“The analogy my wife used was: Say you have a wedding ring that was a family heirloom for generations, and you lost it, and your husband turns around and says, ‘Well, I’ll just buy a new one, it’ll be bigger and better,’” he said. “It’s not the same, right? You lose the meaning behind that heirloom.”
At a meeting on Aug. 17, vice chair of the supervisors Noreen Vigilante said that the sandpit was within the “fall zone” of the swing set, according to a recording shared with The Inquirer. A preliminary design, which the township hasn’t released, would relocate the sandbox and make it bigger. A recording of the public meeting is not available online.
She also mentioned removing the existing sign dedicating the corner, saying that the playground designers felt it was “depressing.” Signage would still be there, later saying they could “negotiate” the sign, but not the sandpit’s placement.
In an email, Vigilante said that in early meetings “it was requested that the playground not be moved.” Leaving the sandpit where it is “severely limits the opportunities for a safe and accessible design.”
The sign, she said, is a “trigger for others who have also lost children or have family members who have lost children.”
“The sign is so large and centrally located that it cannot be avoided if it makes one uncomfortable. An alternative is to have a smaller sign with the same text by the tot lot/sand play area of the playground so that those who may also be grieving do not have to look at the sign when they are attempting to enjoy a playground with other children,” she wrote. “A playground should provide the opportunity for adult-child enjoyment.”
During the meeting last week, officials said they hadn’t heard of any complaints about the sign when the Leitheads asked. Separately, Leithead said the purpose of the sign was “to honor Cayden’s life and to show how a community came together to support a grieving family.”
Other supervisors disagreed with the playground designers’ assessment.
“I don’t care what the playground people think,” supervisor Harold Hallman III said at the meeting. “It’s a park of West Pikeland playground. It’s a part of West Pikeland. It should stay there.”
An early supporter of the memorial plaque and sandpit, Vigilante wrote in an email that she continues “to support the sandpit and a memorial plaque in the playground.”
“However, I feel very strongly that in my role as a township supervisor, I have an obligation to represent all of the residents/children of the township and that all children of all abilities should have safe access to a playground,” she added in an email.
A Facebook page, Preserve Cayden’s Corner, has collected just shy of 100 members, asking fellow residents to push back on the proposed relocation.
The board will meet next on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
Blatcher, the township manager, said that officials have “had multiple conversations with the family” and said it will share the plans with the family when they’re available. Leithead said he hadn’t heard about the possible relocation officially from the township; he approached them at August’s meeting after hearing about the possibility through someone else.
Blatcher wrote that Vigilante championed the proposed renovation, helping secure a second grant for $230,000 and has been “instrumental” in raising more than $65,000 in private donations to cover what the grants don’t.
“The updating of the playground is for the benefit of all West Pikeland Township’s residents and will make the playground ADA accessible and allow more children to access the full play area, including the sandpit,” she said.
Leithead said he just wants the ability to weigh in on the design, saying it wouldn’t be hard to modify the existing sandpit to be ADA accessible, or to relocate the swing set to keep the sandbox out of the fall area.
“We would have never built this three years ago if they said there is even a 1% chance that, ‘Oh, when we redo the playground, we’re going to have to move it,’” he said.
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