Hi Tony1960, and welcome to the Community forums!
Gift cards are not recommended for use with PayPal, because they cannot be verified as a financial credential associated with your identity and address. Often times the system will decline their addition entirely. If able to be added, gift cards may present problems later - for instance they may fail validation when a payment is later attempted, or if a refund is necessary for any reason you may be faced with difficulty retrieving the funds from the card issuer.
You may also find [this post] relevant to your question.
There is one prepaid card that is designed to work with PayPal. It's called the Green Dot MoneyPak. It doesn't help you use the cards you have now through PayPal, but it's an option to consider for the future. For the cards you have now, direct purchase from a merchant is the recommended route. It won't afford the same safety that a purchase made through a registered funding source on your PayPal account would, but it will allow you to spend your gift cards.
I hope this helps!
Olivia
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