Bathurst community raises over $11,000 for Hindmarch family

On August 2, 16-year-old Bathurst High Campus student Paige Hindmarch suffered a severe storm-induced asthma attack and despite the best efforts of paramedics and trauma staff at Bathurst Hospital, Paige could not be revived.

In response, family friend Jason Honeyman started a GoFundMe campaign on Monday evening to help cover the cost of funeral expenses.

Since the campaign begun on Monday evening, the community has managed to raise over $11,000 by midday on Thursday.

READ MORE:

Mr Honeyman said he was overwhelmed by the generous support from the Bathurst community.

"When I approached Garth and Natasha - Paige's mum and dad - about it and told them what I'd like to do, we thought to ourselves if we could raise a couple hundred dollars, that would be great," he explained.

"Every little bit helps but when I published it on Monday night, we never imagined it would take off how it would.

"It restores your faith in humanity, in the way the community has come through and a lot of the people that have donated are not from the Bathurst area. Some of them are from a long, way away."

As of midday on Thursday, $11,605 had been raised from close to 200 donors through the crowdfunding website.

While understandably the Hindmarch are going through an extremely difficult time, Mr Honeyman said that Mr and Mrs Hindmarch, as well as their daughter Dakota, are "holding up reasonably well".

"Like any family that has something like this happen, they are having trouble with a few things. With the support of their friends, they're holding up reasonably well," he said.

"They have no family here as they're South African, but it's through a good group of friends that have helped them as much as possible and the generosity of the people in the community."

People can still donated to the cause, which can be found via the GoFundMe website www.gofundme.com and searching 'Help with funeral costs for Paige Hindmarch'.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: