Entertainment
Kate Winslet gives £17,000 to help pay life support costs of Scottish girl, 12-Rachael O'Connor-Entertainment – Metro
Freya’s mum was forced to set up a fundraiser to help keep her daughter alive in the energy crisis.
Kate Winslet gave a large amount of money towards the life support machines of a 12-year-old girl (Picture: Getty Images for BFI)
A Scottish mother facing soaring energy bills due to the cost of running her daughter’s life support has received a £17,000 donation from actress Kate Winslet.
The Titanic star gave the whopping donation to help the desperate family’s GoFundMe reach its goal of £20,000, with the fundraiser already having clinched £3,000 at that point.
Carolynne Hunter’s 12-year-old daughter Freya, the youngest of four children, has severe complex health problems and disabilities.
She is non-verbal, blind and requires full-time oxygen and at-home nursing care.
Carolynne, 49, from Tillicoultry, launched the GoFundMe this week to help her pay the soaring costs of the equipment that keeps Freya alive, which includes a machine monitoring her oxygen and heart rate.
In her fundraiser, the mum pleaded for help as the rising energy prices meant the costs of running Freya’s life-saving machines were soaring, and they have ‘no way of reducing the usage of energy in our home.’
Freya, 12, is dependent on equipment to help keep her alive (Picture: GoFundMe)
The actress signed off the donation as from ‘Kate Winslet and family’ (Picture: Getty Images)
Just days into the campaign, a donation of £17,000 marked ‘Kate Winslet and family’ was paid to the fundraiser – which has been confirmed as a contribution from the Mare Of Easttown actress.
Carolynne 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?’
On her GoFundMe page, Ms Hunter said she faced a predicted annual fuel bill of £17,000 in January 2023 – up from just over £9,000 in October this year.
Freya’s family are facing a fuel bill of around £17,000 this year (Picture: GoFundMe)
She said she and her older daughter ‘have historically lived in fuel poverty to keep Freya safe and comfortable making sure all her medical needs are being met whilst allowing me to keep my bills as low as possible.
‘We dread every winter in our cold home with an energy efficiency rating of D.’
In August Carolynne told the PA news agency about her fears for the winter, stating: “Our families are going to suffer, there’s going to be a mass crisis for the NHS and social care and children will die if their families are not able to pay for it.”
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Kate’s upcoming Channel 4 feature film, I Am Ruth, is set for release later this year and sees her play the mother of a character called Freya – played by Winslet’s own daughter, 22-year-old Mia Threapleton.
The A-list actress co-authored the film, which looks at the mental health crisis affecting young people in the UK, alongside Dominic Savage, series creator of the I Am anthology of standalone dramas.
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