Streetsboro is set to provide grieving parents with a way to memorialize their loved ones.
A Children’s Memorial Arch will be erected in the north section of City Park, across from Streetsboro’s new community center. The memorial will consist of two benches, an informational pedestal sign, a garden Moon Arch and a flower bed with annuals and perennials. A walkway will lead visitors from the community center to the memorial.
Parents will be welcome to attach Love Locks — padlocks often attached to bridges, gates, fences or monuments — to the arch as a symbol of their love and memories.
“You can use your own padlock or you can buy Love Locks from a couple different websites. They may be able to inscribe messages, sayings or imprint images to the locks,” city Parks and Recreation Director Greg Mytinger said.
Mytinger said he got the idea for the memorial from a city resident: Debbie Yorko, who lost her 25-year-old son Cody in March of 2021. She joined an online support group and learned about a Love Locks memorial about four hours away. She wanted a place where she could go and see it, not just visit. Yorko and Mytinger talked for hours, imagining what a memorial arch site could look like in Streetsboro.
“I was trying to find something to do in his honor and just happened to come up with this idea, just something to do as a memorial. I’m sure this will be able to help everybody or at least give them a chance to memorialize their child in some way,” she said.
Yorko’s Love Lock is engraved with a picture of her son, the date he was born and the date he passed.
“I want this to be a place where parents realize they’re not alone. You feel like it sometimes. Visiting this memorial, you’re going to see that other people are there. You’re going to know that our children, their children were here, and they affected us,” she said. “They were here and they will never be forgotten.”
Perhaps, she added, children who may be going through a tough time will see the memorial and think about plans that may be crossing their minds. Social media, Yorko said, puts unimaginable pressure on kids of all ages.
“I’m really hoping the kids see that they’re not invincible, whether it’s bullying, disease, a car accident, an overdose … nobody thinks it’s going to be them. Any parent that loses a child, it’s an awful thing to go through. No parent should ever have to bury a child,” she said.
What the arch will not be is a climbing structure. Signage indicating that it is not meant for climbing of any sort will be plainly visible.
Mytinger said he hopes to have the arch erected this fall. A formal dedication will be planned, as well.
Also on Mytinger’s to-do list is a permanent StoryWalk to replace a mobile version that has been making the rounds of Streetsboro’s parks since 2021. The storyboard posts are deteriorating, and Streetsboro deserves a permanent location, he said.
StoryWalks are simple. Mytinger said Friends of Pierce Streetsboro Library purchases a couple copies of a book, laminates the pages and inserts them into the storyboard panels. They encourage literacy, outside activity and interaction with nature as children move from post to post to find out what happens next.
And they’re free, so no one is excluded.
The permanent StoryWalk will be sited north of the main drive that divides the park property and will wind through existing concrete walkways and dirt paths in a wooded area east of the tennis/pickleball courts.
The quarter-mile loop path will include 20-24 evenly spaced StoryWalk posts with child-height reading panels. In engineering terms, that means the panels will be 28” to 32” from the ground.
Future plans include improving a grass path in the StoryWalk’s lower section, but that will have to wait on funding, Mytinger said.
To fund the StoryWalk, Mytinger said he received more than $8,000 from the Streetsboro Visitors and Convention Bureau, the Portage Foundation, Friends of Streetsboro Parks, Friends of Pierce Streetsboro Library, Automated Packaging and the Ohio Parks and Recreation Foundation.
Mytinger’s goal is to change out the books on a monthly basis, though he anticipates the winter months may be slower. Like the Memorial Arch, he hopes to have the permanent installation in place this fall.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.