The town, the parish, the school, the sports club, the hotel where the parents work whose owner remembers Giada as a “really cheerful little girl”. The entire community of Castione is rallying around the Paolella family following the tragedy that has struck them. He is the spokesperson for common thoughts the mayor Angelo Migliorati: «Great pain and infinite sadness pervades the whole country the terrible accident in Clusone which cost the life of little Giada, just eight years old. Grandma Paola’s condition remains serious and her little brother Davide is also in hospital. There are no words for tragedies like this. We hold ourselves tightly together around the family and in particular mother Laura and father Roberto.” The Municipality has also decided that city mourning will be proclaimed on Saturday 11 May, the day of Giada’s funeral.
Castione in shock over the death of little Giada. Video by www.bergamotv.it
Rovetta, the pain of the sports club
A pain that also reaches Rovetta, where the sports union in which Davide has played since last September in the «Pulcini 2015» team is based. “The whole company, in this moment of immense pain, rallies around Davide and his family due to the loss of his dear little sister Giada, a heartbreaking tragedy that has suddenly struck them”, is the official note from the company.
The parents of Giada and Davide’s classmates waiting for their children to leave primary school
(Photo by Colleoni)
In the late afternoon of Tuesday, a few hours before the dramatic road accident, Davide Paolella, nine years old, was on the pitch in Zanica for a friendly match with the AlbinoLeffe players: «We took the pitch at 6.30 pm – says Stefano Savoldelli, responsible for the football school and the Pulcini 2015 of Us Rovetta – and Davide had come to the sports field together with his teammates in the minibus. On the way back, however, his grandmother Paola came to pick him up, and I think she also attended the match together with Giada. Davide usually plays as a midfielder. At the end of the game the grandmother came over and called Davide to take him home. I didn’t see Giada at that moment, she was probably already waiting for them in the car nearby.”
«News that shocked everyone»
It was almost 8.30 pm when grandmother and grandchildren left the Zanica sports facility to return to the valley, first stopping for dinner. Just before 11pm, tragedy struck. «Usually at the training sessions on Tuesday and Thursday, which are in the afternoon, dad Roberto always comes with Giada to see Davide at the sports field – explains Savoldelli –: the other evening, however, the parents were at work and the grandmother came , also given the distance. News of the accident had already begun to circulate in the valley late on Tuesday evening and we learned that the victim was indeed Giada. News that shocked everyone. Now we’re thinking about how to remember her. And we are all worried about the conditions of the grandmother and Davide, who however fortunately seems out of danger.”
The owner of the «Milano» hotel, where her parents work: «Giada often came here, we are close to the family»
In Bratto, Roberto Paolella and Laura Falconi have worked as waiters at the “Milano” hotel, the former for 29 years, while the wife for only two. «Giada was a very cheerful little girl, who we knew well because she often came here – recalls the director, Fabio Iannotta, with emotion –: even on Tuesday evening they were both here at work when this tragedy occurred. We are close to them and to all their families.” The «Milano» hotel is a historic structure in the tourist resort of the municipality of Castione: the primary school attended by Giada and Davide borders the hotel and precisely because of this proximity and convenience the parents had enrolled their two children there. The family instead lives in another hamlet of Castione, Rusio, inside the «Residence Prealpi» in via Glaiola.
«It is a great pain for our entire community – underlines the provost, Don Stefano Pellegrini –: before saying our last goodbyes to Giada on Saturday afternoon, we planned a moment of remembrance Thursday evening, at 8.30 pm, in the church of Bratto”.
Funeral on Saturday 11 May
On Wednesday evening Giada Paolella’s parents decided to say their final farewell to their little girl Saturday afternoon, at 3pm, in the parish church of Bratto, the hamlet of Castione della Presolana where Giada attended second grade, where her mother Laura Falconi and father Roberto are well known because they have worked for years as waiters at the “Milano” hotel and where her great-grandmother Mea Improveti lives. It was at the home of the latter, who was very close to her great-granddaughter, that little Giada’s funeral home was set up on Wednesday evening by the “Locatelli” funeral home of Clusone. From Thursday it will be possible to pray next to her coffin, while on Friday evening, at 8pm, a vigil is scheduled at the funeral home. For Saturday, on the sad occasion of the funeral of the little fellow citizen, the Municipality of Castione has also proclaimed citizen mourning. The funeral procession will start from Giada’s great-grandmother’s house to reach the nearby parish church of Bratto, where her funeral will be celebrated. The church is a few meters from the primary school and the “Milano” hotel.
