Editor’s note: Neighbor Spotlight is a monthly feature that aims to let our readers learn more about the people in their communities who are working to make them a better place, who have interesting stories to tell or who the community feels deserve “15 minutes of fame.” If you would like to nominate someone as a Neighbor Spotlight, see bethelparkjournal.com, select the “Post Story” button in the upper right corner and complete the form to publish your nomination. Questions? Email Neighborhood News Network editor Katie Green at kgreen@triblive.com.

Andy Amrhein lives for three things – his family, his community and the joy of helping people.

The Bethel Park native has worked at Evey True Value Hardware along Library Road for close to 38 years – including as co-owner with his wife, Mary Alice Moore, the past 17 years.

He said shows up around 4 a.m. to get ready for customers at 5 a.m., and yet never feels exhausted after working more than 80 hours a week.

“I sleep well at night knowing that I’m helping the community and I’m helping people,” he said. “On the business side of it, I support the people in my community that support me, my family, my employees and my business. Everything that I do for the community, I get back 10-fold. This community supports me every day of the week.”

His handyman skills and work ethic were crafted at home growing up in a large family on Kings School Road.

Family life

Born the seventh of 10 children of Patricia and Edwin G. Amrhein, he learned pretty quickly how to work with others.

“Growing up we never wanted for anything,” Amrhein said. “We never knew of anything that we didn’t have that other kids had. We’ve had hand-me-down clothes and shoes. We never went hungry and we had a roof over our heads and amazing parents. I still get along with all my siblings.”

His father was a master chief in the Navy and served on the USS Gilmore. His civilian job was in the nuclear field at the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin. He also worked for Westinghouse Electric in Boise, Idaho.

Amrhein’s mother was a nurse. The couple met while she was treating him for an appendicitis attack while on leave from the service. They had eight sons and two daughters. Edwin passed years ago at age 85. Patricia Amrhein is 92.

“My dad taught me how to hold my first hammer,” Amrhein recalled. “He taught me a lot of the tricks that I still use today in construction and building and home improvement. Everything we had to do at home we had to do ourselves. With 10 kids, you don’t have a lot of money to hire people to do things. We planted our gardens and did all the repairs at home and everything else.”

Andy and his wife would eventually buy his childhood home as their first house and begin to raise their family. They moved about a mile away, still in the borough, when they had their third child.

Business life

Amrhein helped out his family and neighbors by delivering newspapers as well as doing chores while in elementary school. He began working at the hardware store in 1973 at age 13. His older siblings also put some time in at the shop.

Evey Hardware is a well-stocked store with 35 employees helping in 14 departments ranging from plumbing, building, excavating, a party division, small engine repair shop and more.

Ed and Pat Evey opened it in November 1953.

“It was a right of passage that when you got old enough, you started working at the hardware store because we only lived about a mile away and you walked to work,” Amrhein said. “Mr. Evey was a gentlemen’s gentlemen, an amazing individual and like a second father to me. My father taught me the trade. Mr. Evey taught me the business. I just absolutely loved helping people, solving their home improvement problems, fixing their broken things – and I just never left.”

Amrhein became a partner in the business in 1981 and took over ownership with his wife in 1994 when Evey retired.

Moore, a Bethel Park graduate and former computer analyst and programmer, kept her maiden name. They have been married for 36 years.

She is the secretary and social media director for the business. All three of their children worked at the shop in their teen years.

“I loved every minute of it, teaching my children security, finance, work ethics and not being handed things,” Amrhein said. “My kids never got allowances just like I never got an allowance. You want money, you’ve got to work.”

Production work

When Amrhein is not helping people with projects via his business, he’s helping people over the airwaves. He has had a KDKA radio show for the past 26 years, in which he fields questions and gives helpful home improvement tips.

The “True Value Home Improvement Hour” is from 10-11 a.m. Saturdays on AM 1020 and 100.1 FM.

He has had frequent appearances on KDKA-TV’s “Pittsburgh Today Live,” and produces two shows for BPTV, the borough’s TV station, with the assistance of Dave Cable.

Those shows are “Handy Andy,” a home improvement show, and “Around Town with Andy Amrhein” in which he helps promote community activities and other things in the borough.

He said the most asked about repairs involve plumbing and toilets.

“I consider a toilet an appliance just like your refrigerator or washing machine, but you use your toilet an awful lot more so it breaks more,” Amrhein said.

Community work

Amrhein is one of the founding members of the Bethel Park Education Foundation, which gives grants directly to teachers and students in the borough for projects.

It spawned from the Bethel Park Community Foundation, of which he is a trustee and past president. BPCF has given out more than $1 million to the community in 25 years. The education foundation was formed about six years ago.

Amrhein is the president of the Bethel Park Public Library board, a facility in which he takes great pride.

“I consider our public library the center of our community,” he said. “If your community doesn’t have a library, you don’t have much of a community.”

He also served as youth director for St. Joan of Arc Church years ago, was a scout leader for Boy Scout Troop 225 and was on the district board for the Boy Scouts of America.

Amrhein was recognized as a Bethel Park alumni hall of famer in 2015.

He has no plans to move out of town.

“Bethel is a bigger community with a small feel,” Amrhein said. “Everybody still knows everybody and everyone still helps everybody. I like the people. I like the businesses, the families. I like how people look out for each other. I like how people help each other time and time again. It shows from disasters to good times. People rally together.

“It has a great school district and is a great municipality, police department, fire department and all the things that you need in a community.”