A new way to give back debuted Friday at the Leadership Lawrence Class of 2009 graduation ceremony.

It’s called the Lawrence Virtual Food Bank, and it will make donating to Lawrence’s food pantries instantaneous. Rather than lugging groceries from store to pantry, go to vad.aidmatrix.org and make cash donations.

Oliver Minnis, a member of the class, said the online donations would be beneficial to the pantries. “The pantries are able to use this money, a lot of times, at pennies on the dollar to purchase food that they really need,” Minnis said.