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    HBO Documentary and Star Come to COSI

    Katrina Gilbert has had quite a year: she got engaged, moved, and started working full time toward her degree, all while touring the country in support of the award winning HBO documentary Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert.

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    Gilbert heads to COSI (333 W. Broad St.) on Tuesday, April 28 to share her documentary and join a group of panelists in a town hall style discussion of affordable housing to be hosted by Maria Durant of ABC6 and FOX 28 News.

    Like approximately 42 million Americans and 45% of Ohioans, Gilbert lives on the edge of poverty. The HBO doc follows the mother of 3 through a year of her life, and through the exposure Gilbert has become an inspiration to many.

    “I was hoping the end result would be what it has been,” Gilbert says. “Inspiration others that are going through the same thing, telling them that they can get through it, too.”

    She hopes the impact extends beyond others who struggle financially. She says she’d like the documentary, “hopefully to open the eyes of other people that people that live paycheck to paycheck – people that live in poverty or on the brink of poverty – are not lazy people. They’re hard working, they work 40 hours a week – I sometimes work 15 hour shifts – just to make ends meet.”

    Gilbert was surprised by the success of the show and by the impact it’s had on her life, but pleased as well.

    “I think it has opened a lot of people’s eyes, and not just everyday people walking around, but the government, too,” she says. “I’ve seen certain little steps they’re taking. Like raising the minimum wage – I was there when Obama signed that. He actually sent me a copy of the executive order.”

    But she knows there’s still more to be done.

    “We still need paid sick days. If we get sick, we can’t go to work. Or if one of the kids get sick, we’re not getting paid for those days. That’s money out of my pocket, out of my family’s pocket.”

    Gilbert looks forward to sharing the film with Ohioans and to participating in the discussion, a program put together in part by the Homeport Housing Advisory Center, an organization who sees an affordable home as “a pathway out of poverty.”

    For Ohioans looking for that pathway, Gilbert has some hard won words of advice.

    “What advice I have is to keep going strong,” she says. “You can get through it. You might get knocked down 100 times but you’re going to get back up, and every time you get back up you’re going to be stronger than what you were before.”

    Homeport’s Paycheck to Paycheck town hall event is free to the public and runs 5:30 to 8:30 Tuesday, April 28 at COSI.

    A full slate of movie reviews is available on my website at MADDWOLF. You can also follow me on Twitter @maddwolf, like me on Facebook at MaddWolfColumbus and listen to weekly FRIGHT CLUB podcasts.

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    Hope Madden
    Hope Maddenhttps://columbusunderground.com
    Hope Madden is a freelance contributor on Columbus Underground who covers the independent film scene, writes film reviews and previews film events.
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