Vivienne Burgess died from unexplained causes on Nov. 13, 2016. She was three years old.

Her dad tucked her in the night before after celebrating her birthday at a performance of “Cinderella” at the Children’s Theatre. When her mom entered the room 30 minutes later to give her a good-night kiss, she wasn’t breathing.

She passed the next morning at Children’s Hospital.

Three years later, her parents are turning tragedy into joy.

Vivie’s Playground in Boyd Park of the Cathedral Hill neighborhood in St. Paul, where she loved to play, will be dedicated to local children who have passed from sudden unexplained death in childhood and donated to the city May 19.

The playground was built with funds gathered through Vivienne’s Joy Foundation, a nonprofit started by the Burgess family to honor their daughter and bring awareness to sudden unexplained death in childhood.

“We don’t want Vivie’s life to be defined by her death, but instead by the joy in which she lived life … a joy she shared with everyone she met,” Vivienne’s parents Wade and Julia Burgess said. “That is what we started the foundation, and why building a playground for, and with, the entire community seemed like the perfect first project.”

The foundation partnered with Play by Design, a design firm that specializes in playgrounds, to create a space that encourages imaginative play with accessible structures, a library and music area and an extended bank of swings.