A GRIEVING daughter says she has been left overwhelmed after a public appeal to help pay for her late mother’s funeral raised more than £3,000 in less than a week.

Ebony Rayson was struggling to find the money to pay for a funeral for her mum Tina who died three days after falling from a Blackburn canal bridge.

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After putting an appeal for help on social media, £3,255 has been raised, which Miss Rayson said will be enough to give her mum “the best possible send-off”.

Miss Rayson, 20, said: “My mum would have been really grateful. She was grateful for someone lending her £3 when she was skint, so you can imagine what she would think of this.

“I’m incredibly grateful as well and appreciate every single penny people have given. And I’d ask people to stop donating now as we have raised the money that we needed.

“I didn’t expect that total. I’m so shocked by the level of generosity and it’s heartwarming to know that people care.”

Following her mother’s untimely death, Miss Rayson, who has a two-year-old son named Reun, has taken on the responsibility of looking after two of her siblings, Atlanta, 16, and Kai, 13. Her three-year-old brother Rylee is in his dad’s care.

The day after the funeral on Friday, Miss Rayson and her siblings will move from their current cramped one-bedroom home on Francis Street, Blackburn, to temporary lodgings closer to family.

Miss Rayson, a former Witton Park High School pupil, said: “Although its only a temporary solution while something more appropriate is found it will be good because it will mean we are just around the corner from my grandma.”

Tina Rayson died at Royal Preston Hospital on September 18, following the fall from the Aqueduct Road canal bridge three days earlier.

Floral tributes and messages have been left by family and friends at the railway bridge on Aqueduct Road and at her home on Exeter Street, Blackburn.

A funeral will be held on Friday at Pleasington Crematorium at 11.30am.

An inquest in to her death is due to be heard later this year.