SNELLVILLE, GA (CBS ATLANTA) -
Andy Copeland and his daughter, Paige, were brought to tears on Monday after the Snellville Tourism and Trade Association presented them with a check for $19,000.
The check will go to help Aimee Copeland, 24. Aimee is a West Georgia University student who lost her left leg, right foot and hands to flesh-eating disease.
"That is going to go a long way to getting Aimee a new lease on life," Andy Copeland said.
Aimee graduated from Snellville Middle School and South Gwinnett High School.
City leaders and citizens have banded together to involve the whole community in this fundraising effort to aid the Copeland family with its expenses.
"The $19,000 could go a long way towards her prosthetic limbs," Andy Copeland said. "I mean, the prosthetic limbs are expensive. We are going to need a manual set and a myoelectric set."
On Monday, the city also honored two of its citizens, Vickie Gallup and Brianna Quador. The mother-daughter team was essential in organizing the fundraiser. Most of the donations came from the Snellville Sizzling Summer Weekend, an annual event last month that Gallup and Quador saw as an opportunity to dedicate to Aimee and raise some money.
"We are all here for them to help each other out. That is what Snellville is known for," said Quador.
Quador went to elementary school with Aimee and graduated the same year from South Gwinnett High School.
"It is close to home. It really touches close to home, and you want to do anything you can to help," Quador said.
On July 2, Aimee was released from Doctors Hospital in Augusta and moved to an inpatient rehabilitation clinic. Officials said she will spend the next several weeks learning to move herself with the aid of a wheelchair.
Andy Copeland hopes to have his daughter home by mid-August, right around the same time a newly constructed handicap accessible section of their Snellville home will be finished.
Copyright 2012 WGCL-TV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.
