A candlelight vigil will take place for 5-year-old Kaitlin Bacile at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26 just west of Southshore Boulvard on Big Blue Trace. The vigil will be held near the canal.
Kaitlin drowned last weekend in a canal near her home after she wandered away.

On Thursday Patricia Curry, organizer of the last-minute vigil, was calling friends and neighbors trying to spread the word.

When she heard about Kaitlin, "something touched my heart," she said. "[The vigil] is something I just wanted to do."

She said she wanted the family to know that the community "shared their loss. I can't imagine what they are going through. It just breaks my heart."

Earlier in the week members of cub scout pack 165 came together and set up a free lemonade and snack stand to raise money for the family. They ended up raising $3,300 which they gave to the parents Monday.

"I felt good about giving [the family] the money...[but] sad that she died," said 9-year-old Dylan Spahl, the cub scout who came up with the idea of the lemonade stand.

"We had tons of people stop," said Kelly Spahl, Dylan's mother. "I thought a few people might give some hundreds, but we were just getting 20s, 20s, 20s for about five-and- a-half hours. It was unbelievable. I never assumed we'd get a $1,000 let alone $3,000. It was heartwarming to know the community would come together like that."

One of the mothers who participated in the lemonade stand and Kaitlin's search party the night before, Diana Vicente, said hundreds of members of the community were searching for Kaitlin on Saturday evening. Hundreds more, she said, donated money on Sunday.

"People would drive by and ask if they had found Kaitlin. When we told them they had found her body men and women would just break down and start crying," she said. "We're parents so we understand how much they love their child. We can't even fathom how they are feeling."

Jason Parsley can be reached at jeparsley@tribune.com.