The sun streaming through the hall and warm chatter amongst the crowd marked the start of the “Speaking from the Heart: a Diversity of Brookline Stories, History Series.” A five-part event consisting of five speeches over five months kicked off Saturday, Feb. 1 at the Brookline Public Library. The speaker of the month, social worker Ginnelle Vasquez, delivered a speech highlighting life lessons she has discovered. She focused on how learning to plan ahead has helped her greatly in the past few years.

Series creator Barbara Brown introduced Vasquez as the first speaker in this series. The speeches are part of a new program created by the Brookline Public Library to highlight diversity in Brookline. The program aims to spread personal stories from different perspectives on life and build a stronger community. Instead of just holding one occasion for stories to be shared, Head of Reference at the library Jessica Steytler worked with Brown to create chances for multiple speakers.

“It’s very much a matter of having the opportunity to meet with people in the community and try to provide space for them to feel belonging and connection,” Steytler said.

In her speech, Vasquez illustrated how the challenges of her life helped her grow into the person she is now. Instead of moving on from moments, she took them as lessons and discovered personal values. She shared a personal anecdote to illustrate her point.

While driving, Vasquez’s hood popped open and obstructed her view, and when she looked up at her rear view mirror in panic, she found it had broken. After pulling over to the breakdown lane, she said she took the broken rearview mirror as a sign that her past should not be her focus during her life, but instead the future held the most possibility. This value sparked her ambition for planning ahead. Vasquez said her habits of turning her lived experiences into symbols has helped her throughout the ups and downs of her life.

“I feel like a lot of people have accused me of being super positive in an annoying way, but how else do you get through life in such a negative world if you don’t put a positive spin on things?” Vasquez said.

Audience member Ellen Kaplovitz said she felt touched by Vasquez’s words. Kaplovitz said a big emotion she felt during her speech was sadness, and she wished Vasquez’s words could have a wider reach than the around 20 people in the audience.

“There are people in my life that I’m close to that I wish could hear and benefit from her story that might help them to let go of the past,” Kaplovitz said.

Vasquez said the topics she discussed were especially important to her because throughout her life, she was able to realize these values, and they ended up greatly aiding her. She wishes she could have noticed these things earlier in her life.

“If you don’t have the right perspective, it’s really hard to get through life because life kind of beats us all up,” Vasquez said. “Things happen to us because we’re humans. So I guess what I wanted to share is that it’s never too late.”