KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — As thousands of workers with the Transportation Security Administration are set to miss a paycheck Friday as a partial government shutdown continues, East Tennessee organizations are working in the meantime to provide them with some essentials.
Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee spent Thursday packing emergency food boxes for affected TSA workers as the impasse in Washington D.C. continues.
Many government employees still working through the shutdown will not be receiving a paycheck Friday.
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Second Harvest said it prepared boxes to provide the 170+ TSA workers in the Knoxville, Tri-Cities, and Chattanooga areas with food enough for three days, which include meat, produce and canned goods.
"If you gotta pay rent, you gotta pay rent... and I don't think your landlord is going to take this for an excuse," Aaron Snukals with Second Harvest said. "If we can just take a little bit of the load off to them and by providing to them some food so they can use their money for other things, then that's what we're here for."