Shirley and Boyd Brewster have a big...

Shirley and Boyd Brewster have a big family: 10 children and 10 grandchildren--and 250 tenants in the senior citizen apartment complex that the Brewsters manage in Inglewood.

The Brewsters are on call 24 hours a day at Inglewood Meadows Apartments, listening to tenants’ concerns, lobbying for increased services and, throughout it all, treating residents like family.

The couple’s personal touch has won them an award as the national apartment managers of the year by the Assn. of Housing and Urban Development Management Agents. They will be honored at a luncheon Monday.

In nominating the couple, the Brewsters’ boss, Philip Sutherland, wrote, “One of the greatest needs of seniors is to be loved and cared about, and that Boyd and Shirley Brewster supply in abundance.”

The average age of their tenants is over 80. The oldest resident is 97. Most of those in the 199-unit government-subsidized complex are on Social Security.

“These people have nobody in the world,” Shirley Brewster said.

That’s where she and her husband come in.

Boyd Brewster cooked 95 pounds of chicken and ribs for a Fourth of July barbecue that drew nearly 100 residents, including a few who had not ventured out of their apartments in years.

When Christmastime came, instead of heading off to their real family in the Bay Area, the Brewsters decided to trim a tree in the apartment recreation room for those who had no place else to go.

When the guest list grew to 80, and their vacation money ran out, the Brewsters solicited food and gifts from local merchants and community groups. At the party, they cooked four turkeys and three hams.

But tenant Amal Alexander, 80, points out that sacrificing their personal vacations is not all the Brewsters contribute.

“If you have a problem they will see that that problem is taken care of,” said Alexander, president of the complex’s senior citizen association. “It’s never too late to call them.”

Shirley Brewster, known to her tenants as Dutch, is frequently on the phone herself, lobbying whoever it takes to get services for her residents.

The Brewsters, who moved into Inglewood Meadows last April after numerous other apartment manager jobs in Northern California, said the award is an honor--but not why they do what they do.

A bigger thrill for Boyd Brewster came after the Fourth of July barbecue when the cooking was done.

Dozens of the residents gathered together and surprised Boyd Brewster with a round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”