When he was not managing homes, Alexander Wrenn was helping to ensure those in need had one.
Wrenn, who is 75 and a past president of the Greensboro Regional Realtors Association and served on various boards of the North Carolina Association of Realtors, has spent decades brokering rental homes for Wrenn Zealy, a Greensboro property management company he helped found over 40 years ago.
During that time, he put a lot of hours into helping repair, or even build, homes for people challenged in some way by having a place to live.
Joe Borlick praises Wrenn’s “enduring, decades-long track record.”
“From the early days of his career to today, he has made a difference through community service and civic and social involvement,” said Borlick, who nominated Wrenn for the 7 Over Seventy honor.
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After hurricanes Dennis and Floyd inundated parts of eastern North Carolina with floods in 1999, Wrenn was among volunteers who went to Grifton to help clean up or “muck out” as Wrenn calls it, and restore the homes of those affected by the flooding.
“It seemed like the thing to do. They were our North Carolina neighbors,” Wrenn said.
The devastation on people’s lives was remarkable, Wrenn said.
“They had literally nothing. The flood waters took their homes, their cars and their employment.”
He spent hours sorting through people’s possessions contaminated by flood water laced with petroleum and raw sewage.
“We would end up stacking everything at the curb. Furniture, clothes, shoes, books, paperwork,” Wrenn said.
They tried to salvage what they could, such as glassware and service ware.
Wrenn slept on a church floor with other volunteers, several of whom were in their 60s. One volunteer with a heart condition pulled nails from wood molding so it could be reused.
“That tells you if you are willing to volunteer, there’s a job you can do,” Wrenn said.
Wrenn’s hurricane recovery experience came into play six years later when he was asked to organize a team to help with the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. He chose the home of a widower in Gulfport, Miss.
“The water was so high that his living room vaulted ceiling had seaweed on the fan.”
Wrenn has also traveled to Arizona to help with a home and a church on the Navajo Nation.
Closer to home, Wrenn has been involved with Habitat for Humanity, helping floor and roofing crews build homes for people in Greensboro challenged by affordable housing. An advocate of housing for everyone, he was involved in with the nonprofit Affordable Housing Management for 15 years.
“I think housing is pretty fundamental. It helps with the solidarity of the family,” Wrenn said. “If a family has a decent place to live and a decent education, it pays back the entire community.”
Wrenn is also an advocate of the arts. He served for 12 years with the United Arts Council Sternberger Artist Center.
“It was very beneficial for me to be involved, because I had to be sensitive to their needs… to assist the facility to operate,” Wrenn said.Wrenn said his desire to volunteer is rooted in his experiences as a Marine in the Vietnam War. The war cost him friends in combat and later from exposure to the chemical Agent Orange, which was used as an herbicide during the war. Wrenn can only wonder at how he survived both.
“What I do have, though, is the health and ability to serve — something those dear friends lost.”
He said his volunteerism is a tribute to those comrades.
“Perhaps if I were not serving in the housing arena, I would be a volunteer, serving somewhere in some capacity.”
