All In - Page 2

Jeff Kmetec, a leader in the push several years ago to create a new clubhouse, says both his daughters came up through the Marlins swim team. One became head coach. It's a typical story for other Greenmmeadow families.

But say you don't swim? No problem. Greenmeadow residents can join at a lower rate as a "fair share member," which provides use of park and community center but not of the pool.

Many community leaders say that having their own pool to run has done far more for the community than providing a place to swim. It has provided a central focus, a gathering point.

"Our main job isn't to run the pool," Ingrid Pinsky says of the association. "Our main job is to keep the community vibrant."

How vibrant is Greenmeadow? When Suman Rangaswamy and husband Mahesh Kallahalla sought a Palo Alto home in 2014, Suman says, "We wanted a place where community was a very big part, where neighbors know each other.

"Because I grew up in India, where it's like that. Neighbors, friends, everybody knows everybody. Kids spend summer holidays, evenings playing in each other's houses, on the streets. And everybody watches out for everybody. And when we actually saw Greenmeadow, it was all those things and more."

While the pool remains at its heart, it does not define a community where many people never put a toe in the water.

Throughout the year the association runs events ranging from minor to major, including outdoor movie nights. "A lot of people come here from all over the world, so we've started doing more international events," says Penny Ellson, an active resident since 1995. "We did Chinese New Year's. There was a Diwali party. You didn't see that a few years ago."

The biggest event every year is the Fourth of July. Its lead organizer is Sonya Bradski, who's lived in Greenmeadow 27 years and raised three children with husband Gary. Sonya has done so much that Barry Tao calls her the "glue" that keeps the neighborhood together.

Loretta Green, a resident since 1973 who raised four children in Greenmeadow with husband Bill, was a popular columnist for the San Jose Mercury News and other Peninsula papers.

Among her topics was Greenmeadow's annual Fourth of July, presented as "a great example of how a community organizes and pulls together, and involves all ages, and really makes it feel like a really warm, wonderful neighborhood," she says. She wrote about the Greenmeadow band, which leads the parade.

"People bring out their old instruments, and you see everything from clarinets to recorders to just everything. The girls have a spirit team; and so the mothers make their little costumes, and so there'll be like 15 girls in matching costumes, doing their little routine; and little children decorate their bikes."

Loretta, who was recently given a Lifetime of Achievement award for her volunteer work throughout the wider community, has been part of Greenmeadow's small but notable Black community, which also included Roy Clay, a now-legendary mathematician and Hewlett-Packard executive who pioneered the creation of the minicomputer.

"Roy was a very close family friend. Our kids all played together and he lived three blocks from here," Loretta says.

She and Bill, a retired lawyer, have loved living in Greenmeadow, though she does mention a few examples of prejudice: some neighbors questioning if her children lived in the neighborhood when they were trick-or-treating; her son being stopped by suspicious police while walking a bike.