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17th February 2023
09:04am GMT

“We were not wealthy at all, but we lived such rich and love-filled days.”
Ivy’s loss would “deeply” affect the family, Ella said: “Right now it seems an insurmountable mountain, but we have each other; my husband Jack, our daughter Imogen, our baby due in August and our families, friends and community. We all have each other."
She said the tragedy has cost the family everything, "our home and everything in it".
“With the water level 10cm from the ceiling everything has been utterly destroyed, our section and our incredible lovingly tendered edible garden... nothing is salvageable. But none of that loss compares even close to the loss of our beautiful baby girl.”
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Ella said the accident was unavoidable and Ivy died “very quickly”.
A friend of the family, Hayley McMaster, set up a Givealittle page for the Collins family on Thursday night, and by Friday morning over $174,000 (£90,625) had been donated.
“Your love for your kids is next level, even taking them out of daycare to be able to teach and love on them even more,” McMaster says on the page.
“No words can say how saddened we feel about the loss of your beautiful little 2-year-old Ivy, who was ripped apart from your family in the recent cyclone in New Zealand.”
McMaster said Ella was pregnant with her third child, due in August, and said the family would have no income as her husband’s work was now “on hold” indefinitely.
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