This year, Windermere Willow Glen Realtor Louise Parzanici was the event coordinator for that office, which opened less than two years ago at Meridian Avenue and Willow Street.

"We wanted to target something that was in Willow Glen," Parzanici said.

She contacted Willow Glen Elementary School's principal, Dayle D'Anna, to see if the school needed any volunteers for end-of-the-year projects. It turned out D'Anna was concerned about the clusters of rapidly growing weeds around the school's landscaping, especially in the large area surrounding the prominent Willow Glen Elementary School sign at the corner of Minnesota and Lincoln avenues.

Ordinarily, PTA members and their families volunteer to do weeding around the school property during special work days, but with additional school activities using up spare time as the school year ended, the weeds were thriving.

At 9 a.m. Parzanici and Windermere Willow Glen Realtors Wilma "Willie" Wright and Ralph and Rachel Rodriguez met at the school wearing their Windermere Community Service Day T-shirts. With tools the school provided, they attacked the stubborn root systems of dandelions, numerous flowering weeds, crab grass and even a "volunteer" fig tree seedling and carrot plant mixed in with the perennial plants.

Parzanici and Wright, both Willow Glen residents, have worked on their own home gardens for many years, but for the Rodriguez couple, it was a unique experience. Ralph called himself a gardening "rookie," and Rachel said she was a "total novice," but they made quick progress nonetheless.

Wright brought along her own antique weeder, which resembles a large wooden radish with a long pointy metal end piece. It was an old gift from her Aunt Wilma who owned the Kenwood Nursery on Highway 12 in Sonoma County when Wright was growing up in the 1960s. The old tool did the trick on numerous stubborn weeds Wright pulled out beneath the prominent willow and redwood trees behind the school sign.

As the weeding progressed, Wright said, "It looks good, but then you look up and see everything yet to be done."

The four volunteers filled and refilled a total of about eight trash cans in less than three hours, weeding as far as the redwood tree by the Minnesota Avenue sidewalk across from Our Secret consignment store.

And while this crew attacked weeds, Parzanici had arranged for other Windermere Willow Glen volunteers to work at the Second Harvest Food Bank on Curtner Avenue. Several more volunteers cleared brush at a home in Alum Rock. The homeowner was severely and permanently injured during a burglary.

And volunteering won't be set aside until the next official event.

"We do things all year," Wright says. "When there is a need, we fill it."

Sometimes the need is far from home. A Windermere Realtor's husband is serving in Afghanistan, and he recently emailed her that his unit hadn't received any packages from home for several weeks, due to a military delivery bottleneck. Even though she works in another local office, to show their support the Willow Glen group sent care packages to the soldiers and added their heartfelt messages to a 3-foot by 4-foot Windermere Silicon Valley Properties banner that will go to Afghanistan.

The June 18 event began in 1984 at Windermere's corporate office in Seattle as a way to serve the needs of local communities. It now includes approximately 6,500 Windermere Realtors in the Western United States.