URBANA -- A $15,000 grant from Kraft Foods will sponsor seven Foodmobiles in coming months for the Eastern Illinois Foodbank to fight hunger in underserved communities.

Over the last 10 years, Kraft had donated a total of $45,000 for the Foodmobiles, trucks that bring 5,000 pounds of groceries and household items to needy areas, enough for 875 families or about 2,600 individuals, according to food bank estimates.

Last year, Kraft instead focused its charitable giving on other initiatives with Feeding America, the national network of food banks, said Cheryl Precious, spokeswoman for the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

Kraft decided to reinvest in the local Foodmobile program this year to improve access to food and nutrition programs, Precious said.

"It's a really good way to get food into communities that are underserved," she said Thursday.

The food bank funds 18 foodmobiles a year throughout its 14-county region, and tries to get businesses or other groups to sponsor another 12, for a total of 30.

The $15,000 Kraft grant will pay for seven Foodmobiles, so "it certainly frees up resources to be invested in other programs," she said.

"If we can continue to get sponsorships at the rate we're getting them, we could easily do more than 30," she added.

The Foodmobiles will be used to address "meal gaps" identified in a recent hunger study, which reported that 79,000 people in East Central Illinois don't have enough to eat. About 15.5 percent of the people in the food bank's service area are considered "food insecure," unable to get enough food on a regular basis, the study said.

At the top of the list was Vermilion County, which had the highest "food insecurity" rate in the meal gap study, at 17.8 percent. It also ranked low fourth from the bottom in a recent study measuring the overall health of Illinois' 102 counties, which included such barometers as smoking rates and premature deaths.

Precious said the number of Foodmobiles in Vermilion County could go up as a result. The next one is scheduled for April 22 at the Antioch Mission Food Pantry, 311 N. Collett St., Danville.

The food bank will also continue to target Ford County, which has only one food pantry and hosts a Foodmobile every month, Precious said. Other counties that are struggling with unemployment and poverty are Coles and Cumberland counties, she said.

Health Alliance, the Laborers Union and United Way of Champaign County also sponsor Foodmobile distributions, she said.

The Kraft Foods Foundation is making a total of $300,000 in similar grants across the country through Feeding America, for programs to improve transportation and refrigeration or provide fresh produce and protein to hard-to-reach areas, officials said.

Kraft also donates food directly to the Eastern Illinois Foodbank from its manufacturing plant in Champaign, Precious said.

"On behalf of our Champaign manufacturing facility, we're pleased to support the important work of the Eastern Illinois Foodbank, an organization that is making a difference in the fight against hunger," plant manager Dennis Gordon said in a release. "Kraft Foods and its foundation have a long history of giving back to the community, and we're glad to do so here in eastern Illinois, where our employees live and work."