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Yadkin Commissioners Accept Grant For Hospital

The community hospital in Yadkinville. WFDD file photo by Paul Garber

Yadkin County commissioners have agreed to accept a grant that could help reopen its community hospital.

The commissioners unanimously agreed to accept almost $450,000 from the Golden LEAF Foundation to advance the hospital's reopening. That was contingent upon a match of twenty percent - or about $112,000 - from the county.

County officials say the money will be used to replace the heating and cooling system, refurbish the parking lot and upgrade the sidewalks.

“We are very grateful to the Golden LEAF Foundation for their generous gift that will help us make a quality healthcare facility become a reality,” board chairman Kevin Austin says in a statement. “The county will begin the bid process to start these renovations immediately.”

Yadkin Valley Community Hospital's for-profit operator abruptly closed the facility two years ago, and about 150 people lost their jobs. The move set off a legal showdown between the company and the county.

Under terms of the grant, the money must be spent within three months unless the foundation agrees to an extension.

Golden LEAF was created in 1999 to help small towns and regions dependent on a declining tobacco economy.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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