An estimated 500 volunteers searched Sunday for a three-year-old Ontario boy who police say was swept away by floodwaters five days earlier.

“I have a two-year-old and six-year-old little boy so it totally hits home for me,” one of those volunteers told CTV Kitchener on Sunday. “Even just talking about it makes me want to cry.”

Kaden Young went missing just before 1 a.m. on Feb. 21, near the town of Grand Valley, Ont.

According to the Ontario Provincial Police, it was a foggy night and the boy’s mother drove past a roadblock near their home that had been set up due to flooding.

The woman’s minivan was swept into the swollen Grand River. She managed to get her son out of the vehicle, but raging floodwaters ripped the boy out of her arms, police said.

Police do not expect to find the child alive. Still, hundreds of people from across Ontario continue to search.

Alicia Sylvest travelled from nearby Waterloo, Ont., to help prepare meals for the child’s family and hundreds of fellow volunteers.

Sylvest said she met the boy’s mother for the first time over the weekend, and called her “a very strong woman.”

“It just means a lot to everybody to see a community coming together and people travelling from all across Ontario to come and be a part of this,” Sylvest added.

As the search grew Sunday, so too did vigils. Stuffed animals, flowers and candles were placed by his home and a bridge that spans the river where he went missing.

Search and rescue teams, however, have been hampered by rapidly changing conditions.

“Ice has melted. It’s moved. Water has subsided,” volunteer William Bolton told CTV Kitchener on Sunday. “The environment changes almost by the hour.”

In addition to volunteers, police have used an underwater search team, a drone and a helicopter equipped with thermal imaging technology.

On Thursday, CTV Kitchener reported that a T-shirt and booster seat belonging to the child had been located.

The OPP said it will decide Monday whether it plans to continue searching for the child.

In the past week, floodwaters have led to thousands of homes being evacuated in southern Ontario, with the municipalities of Brantford and Chatham-Kent particularly hard hit.

With files from CTV Kitchener and CTV London