Photo by Jack Driscoll
The memorial across from the Derby soccer fields.
DERBY — A new memorial in Witek Park is meant to convey a sense of community for the young people and their families who gather on nearby soccer fields.
The privately-funded memorial was dedicated Sunday to mark the memory of Richard Ciardi, a Derby resident who died in a car accident in Seymour. Cairdi was a 2020 graduate of Emmett O’Brien Technical High School in Ansonia.
He was just 18 years old when he passed.
Richard was an all-league soccer player his senior year of high school, according to his obituary. He studied precision machinery at Emmett O’Brien, and worked as a screw machine operator at RAF Electronic Hardware in Seymour — a job he was first exposed to while in high school.
His mom and dad appeared at a few Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen meetings to ask whether city officials would allow a memorial for their son to be erected near the Witek Park soccer fields, a favorite spot of Richard’s. The board agreed and the memorial was shepherded through local government by Second Ward Alderman Gino DiGiovanni and a subcommittee of the board.
DiGiovanni met with Richard’s parents, Susan and Richard, for several hours to come up with a design for the memorial. He also helped to transport the memorial from the Ciardis’ house to the park.
“I spent about three hours with them and they told me about their son and his love for soccer,” DiGiovanni said. “The idea for the design was to do something based on who he was.“
The result is a soccer player overlooking the fields where hundreds of Derby kids play — just as Richard did. There’s two benches there, a place for people to gather. The statute itself was sculpted from wood.
“The idea is that people can sit there and watch the players. The idea behind it was that it was something that people can use,” DiGiovanni said.
There’s a rock within the memorial that includes a photo of Richard, along with an inscription:
“To our son, Richard:
May the energy of your spirit and your beautiful smile forever shine down on your happy place.
Forever loved, and forever missed.
Mom and Dad.”
