“If you want to know what’s going on with youth, you just ask youth and invite them into the conversation… They’re the experts in their field, because they are youth… If you don’t listen to them, you’re going to make mistakes.”

Chris Cullen

“To be in that room where, you know, so many cool bands have played… it does something to your sense of who you are as an artist, to be like, ‘Okay, I’m part of something.’”

Max Ruhlman

“Third spaces are vital for mental and emotional well being. Treat the cause, not the symptoms with a mental health crisis.”

Wolfe Adriatico

“I learned guitar there, played my first show there, and ran sound there. Music at the Firehouse didn’t just give me confidence, it gave me actual skills I still use today.”

Ralph Lu

“It was such an accepting place, no matter your background or who you were… I know a lot of people, and myself personally, who might not be alive today if it weren’t for the old firehouse.”

Damien Iacono

“The firehouse modeled a lot of positive ‘how do we be in community’… it was a space to learn how to express yourself and to be heard and seen and valued for who you are.” “The firehouse truly is forever, because a lot of this work lives on and then is inspired and becomes the DNA of another generation.”

Nancy Chang