FRANKLIN—The Franklin-Southampton Area United Way received a donation of $10,000 from CSX Transportation on Friday.

“This is the largest donation our company has made in Virginia this year,” said Quintin Kendall, the company’s resident vice president.

Kendall said CSX had a difficult year, but when company officials learned that one of its customers, International Paper Co., would be leaving the community it decided to make the donation.

“This particular set of circumstances led us to believe that we should do what we can,” Kendall said. “We wish we could give more. We know that things will come back, but in the interim we wanted to make sure that the community was well served.”

Anne Bryant, the United Way’s executive director, told Kendall she was grateful for the company’s generosity.

“We are hugely grateful to CSX for this,” Bryant said. “We’ll put the money to the best use we can to serve the needs of the community.”

According to Bryant, grants from both Franklin-Southampton Charities and the Camp Foundations go toward funding the charity’s administrative expenses, so every dollar that is donated goes to the 26 agencies and 30 programs the United Way supports. Those agencies and programs provided 18,000 services last year.

For more information about the United Way, call (757) 569-8929.