Flowers and balloons piled up outside Clinton-Massie High School Friday as the Clinton County community mourned two young lives cut short.
Family, friends and even strangers held a candlelight vigil for 18-year-old Rosa Mendoza and 15-year-old Prezzleigh Goldie.
The friends died after their car crashed into another vehicle on State Route 73 in Chester Township Tuesday night.
"I just can't comprehend it. I can't believe that it would happen to her," Addison Howard said.
Mendoza was Howard's first friend when she started 8th grade.
"She was kind, she was sweet, she always helped people when she could," she said. "She was always there for anyone. She would always go up to people who were sitting alone at lunch and try to be their friend. She was great. "
A senior, Mendoza was said to be a friend to all.
Her passenger that night, Goldie, was a sophomore.
She was newer to the school, so not as many people knew her as they did Mendoza, but Goldie's classmates say her life and impact were just as great.
"A few days before the accident happened, I saw her in the hallway more than I'd ever seen her before and I was just thinking about how nice she was," fellow sophomore Lexus Poston said. "Just how great of a person she was stuck with me through all these years."
Goldie was a person who would drop everything to help someone they just met, friends said.
"We went to a football game and I asked her if she had face paint and she told me she didn't, but then she spent the entire game looking for someone with face paint with me," Kayle McCollister said.
Throughout the vigil, school staff handed out brown paper bags. Inside were stuffed animals called "Battle Pups." Around 50 of them were donated by Columbus-based nonprofit Way to Battle, which helps families cope through times of life-changing illness, injury or loss.
As shock is now replaced with grief, the community takes one step closer to healing.
"I just hope...I want Rosa to know that everyone really did love her and appreciate her and I think it'll be a good way to remember her," Howard said.
The pain of loss will linger, and though they may be gone, Mendoza and Goldie will never to be forgotten.
"So many people love and care about them," McCollister said. "We're all going to miss them."
A GoFundMe was set up for the Mendoza family. As of Friday night, more than $8,000 had been donated to help the family with unexpected funeral expenses.
A celebration of life will be held for Mendoza in the Clinton-Massie High School auditorium Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m.
Goldie's family is requesting privacy and will hold their own service at a later date.
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