A mother facing soaring energy bills due to the cost of running her daughter’s life support has received a £17,000 donation from Kate Winslet. Carolynne Hunter’s 12-year-old daughter Freya, the youngest of four children, has severe complex health problems and disabilities, is non-verbal and blind and requires full-time oxygen and at-home nursing care.
Ms Hunter, 49, from Tillicoultry, Scotland, launched a GoFundMe fundraiser earlier this week to help her pay the soaring running costs of the equipment that keeps Freya alive, which includes a machine monitoring her oxygen and heart rate. Just days into the campaign, which had a £20,000 goal, a donation of £17,000 marked “Kate Winslet and family” was paid to the fundraiser – which has been confirmed as a contribution from the Titanic and Mare Of Easttown actress.
Ms Hunter told the BBC: “Our journey as family has been very traumatic and I just feel done at this point in my life. When I heard about the money I just burst into tears – I thought it wasn’t even real. I’m still thinking is this real?”
