"Sometimes when you’re young, you just deal with what you have, and that’s it. You don’t go look for something else."

11-year-old Inari Jade Higgins Barrett, bringing the house down with a song she wrote in the third grade. By her side is her father, Toussaint Liberator.

"I didn’t really know what to expect. I mean, Massachusetts people aren’t the friendliest folk to start a conversation. But I figured: whatever, I’ll sing. I know I can at least sing. If people talk to me, great. And if they don’t, at least they’ll think I’m a good singer hopefully."

"When that crack came through here, did a job on the neighborhood. And it’s funny, because they announced it- like, it was in New York first, and they said that it was gonna be coming to Massachusetts. Almost like the lotus were coming and stuff."

"You had to make your choice then—if you stayed with yours, or you went with the other kind, you know? So I decided, I said: Listen. I seen enough of my side. Let me see what the other side is like."

"I got my start in comedy in prison. One of the guys, he was a rapper, and he said: 'Man, you always sayin’ something funny. You need to write this down.' And so I wrote it down."

“At my father’s 80th birthday, I said, ‘Well, dad. Here I am. I always said this wasn’t what I wanted to do, and this is what I’m doing. And thank you. I enjoy it. And know how to do it from watching you.’"

"You start, and it’s calm and cool. And then, next thing you know, it capture your inner self. And if you’re not too careful, you could get lost within the very same rhythm that you’re playing. Because it will take you. It’s like a musical journey."

"I just felt like if I was a stronger link in the chain of people around my brothers, that if they needed me support-wise, I could be there. It was basically: go to school now, so that you can take care of them later."

"They were sailors, and we just said, ‘Oh, my, aren’t they adorable?’ They must have said the same thing about us! You know, the whistles and all of that. Ignored, of course, you know. Hard to get."

"Los Robles, un grupo de latinos de tercera edad, cantando espontáneamente mientras esperan embarcar un crucero del Boston Harbor organizado por la ciudad. Para algunos, era la primera vez que salían del barrio de Mission Hill." (VIDEO)

"You give me a mic and a thousand people, and you better believe I will captivate them. I will do it. I’m not sure of a lot of things in life, but that I’m sure of."

"The first day I took the ropes out was last year at the Ripley Road cookout. It was amazing. I had a 49-year-old lady jumping rope. She had a head full of grey hair. She jumped longer than everybody."

"It was a very demanding, tough job, having to wake up at 4 in the morning.You could work up to 18 hour days, right before a holiday. But I would not have the work ethic that I have today if not for this place."

"In the old days, we had a sofa in the lobby that we actually got rid of, because people would just come in with their coffee and sit on that sofa. And I’d say, ‘Can I help you?’ ‘Nope, we’re good.’"

"I thank God because I have two sisters here- and let me tell you, if it wasn’t for them, we don’t know how we would have made out, because they make me laugh, they make me smile, they make me cry, you know."

"I’ve had many mentors, and continue to have many mentors along the way. Whatever I find I’m interested in, I usually go find an old timer who can show me, and I’ll start there."

"She’s not really going to miss him now. She’s really gone. And he’s alive and living. And he said, ‘I just cannot sit here and wait to die. I just can’t.’"

"When I was at camp for final show, at the end, I danced, right? At the end, I lifted my leg all the way and then I did a split. Just at the end. For like, just a solo part. It felt good, because everybody was watching me, and they saw what I can do."

The birthday tradition started a few years ago, when members of the Mission Hill Senior Legacy Project noticed older people in the neighborhood were often spending their birthdays alone. (VIDEO)