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United Bank Jan. 6 made a donation to Baldwin County Library Cooperative Inc. of a 2013 Ford Transit Connect van.

The transit van is replacing an aging vehicle that had been purchased used and had been in service for five years, logging over 300,000 miles.

Elizabeth Webb, director of the Baldwin County Library Cooperative, based in Robertsdale, received the van from Chad Yarbrough, SVP community bank business lender, earlier this month.

The transit van will be used to transport books and inter-library mail and materials between the 14 libraries in Baldwin County that participate in this program. The courier service operates five days a week and travels 125 miles a day.

When it was determined that the previous van was unsafe to drive, Ms. Webb began to apply for grants and financial assistance without success, according to a release.

Webb and her staff were using their personal vehicles to courier the needed materials between library locations.

“I just want to say how thankful the entire Baldwin County Library Cooperative is,” Webb said in a release. “This is a very important service library patrons can’t live without.”

“This is a perfect partnership between two different institutions within Baldwin County,” added Yarbrough. “Providing a much needed service to the library will help open doors for all the library patrons of the county.”