A Catholic priest raised money and gave gift cards to employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) while a partial government shutdown forced most of the workforce to work without pay.
Father Jim Sichko, a papal missionary of mercy, held a 24-hour fundraiser for the workers that he advertised across social media platforms, raising about $20,000. The act coincided with his effort to perform random acts of kindness for those in need.
Some of TSA’s funding is on hold as lawmakers debate broader funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees TSA. Democrats are trying to include reforms to immigration enforcement in the funding package as Republicans are resisting any language that could curtail President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
Trump signed an executive order on March 27 to provide some back pay to TSA employees, and future payments remain in limbo amid the congressional deadlock.
Father Jim Sichko delivers gift cards to TSA agents while they worked without pay amid congressional funding negotiations. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Father Jim Sichko
Sichko, who travels frequently by air, told EWTN News he delivered gift cards to TSA workers during flights he already scheduled. He gave a bundle of gift cards in denominations of $10 and $20 to workers in Lexington, Kentucky, and Chicago, providing a total of $11,000 worth of gift cards to employees.
The donated gift cards comply with federal regulations that prohibit employees from accepting direct cash gifts but allow them to accept small amounts of money in gift cards for restaurants, grocery stores, and a few other products.
Sichko is holding onto the remaining $9,000 because TSA workers have begun to receive back pay. He plans to resume gifting the rest of the gift cards to TSA workers if their pay is disrupted again. Otherwise, he said he will probably donate them to Catholic Charities.
“It was a justice issue for me,” Sichko said when asked why he decided to launch the fundraiser for TSA employees.
“They’re working, with families who need to be fed, bills that need to be paid, utilities that [are] … due and, as a priest, as a person of God, I think it’s my duty to help them,” he said. “... These people were working without pay and they have families and they already are in a stressful job.”
Sichko said he relies on TSA for his ministry because he frequently travels by airplane, and these employees are “keeping me safe to be able to do the ministry to which I’m called.” He said he considers TSA workers “partners with me in the ministry to which I am called because they keep me and my fellow passengers safe.”
He thanked those who contributed to the fundraiser and said the acts of kindness are “a way of evangelizing.” He said the fundraising “allows people the opportunity to be co-ministers, to really fulfill their baptismal promise of being ministers.”
“To see how people responded, it really shows us that we truly can be kind, we truly can be Christ to one another,” Sichko said.
During the previous government shutdown, when TSA employees were working without pay, Sichko provided them with meals.
Sichko often raises money to perform other acts of kindness and to help people in need. This includes help to those affected by hurricanes in southeast Texas, flooding in eastern Kentucky, tornadoes in western Kentucky, and fires in eastern Tennessee.
He has also raised money to support the cost of funerals for people, including the children and workers who died in the July 2025 flooding of Camp Mystic in central Texas.
“This is part of the ministry of being a papal missionary of mercy,” Sichko said.
The pontiff encouraged a Rome parish facing poverty and social challenges to show its closeness to those wounded and searching for hope.