Pete DeMaio grew up in Ventnor City, NJ just one block from the beach. His maternal Grandmother and paternal Grandfather both immigrated to the USA. Pete’s parents met in Atlantic City NJ as teenagers and Pete later became the youngest of their four boys. Pete and his wife Tricia met and began dating in high school. They just celebrated 30 years of dating, 20 years of marriage and are so thankful to still be together. God has Blessed them with 7 absolutely beautiful children, 4 boys and 3 girls ranging from Age 19 down to 5.
Tricia and Pete have happily taught marriage prep and NFP for nearly 15 years. In addition, Pete has spoken in our schools to our youth for Free since 2008. In recent years, Pete had the honor to Lector, serve Mass and participate as a Christian initiation sponsor at the Basilica of St Peter and Paul in Philadelphia PA for Pastor, Father Dennis Gill. Pete and his brother, Chris were able to serve Mass together for the first time since they were children. Chris was just ordained a Permanent Deacon in June of 2024.
Despite being a beautiful image of Marriage, Family and Faith, it wasn’t always this way. Pete and Tricia made so many horrible mistakes in their early years of dating through high school, college and beyond. Looking back, they feel they both lacked solid formation and education. This has become the driving force behind their vision for their new organization.
Tricia graduated from Villanova nursing school and worked for Penn/Presbyterian for 15 years. She did her graduate work at Villanova to pursue her NP . Although Tricia had a passion for education and her career, she fell in love with being a Mother and decided to stay home to raise their children after their 5th child was born. She is back to work and currently assisting Regina Luminis Academy as the School Nurse and Director of Enrollment.
Pete was extremely fortunate to have an extremely extensive background in Business. After losing his brother and almost losing his mother to cancer, Pete made a areer change in 2006 to help individuals and families with their Insurance & Financial needs. The career change, starting a new usiness and starting their family took a massive toll on Pete and Tricia financially. They were nearly bankrupt in 2012 and remain extremely grateful to their parents for all the love and tremendous support the couple received.
With the assistance of their families, Pete and Tricia persevered. While Tricia cared for the children, Pete applied all his experience to their new business and God simply took care of the rest. Thanks to a successful team, in 2014, Pete’s office wound up earning the most prestigious award given by the fortune 100 corporation “Best In Company”. His Agency ranked #1 out of 10,000 Agencies countrywide. They went on to achieve this award 3 years in a row, which was the first time ever in the company’s 75-year history.
Once Pete and Tricia were financially stable, they desired to fully give their lives back to God. With Tricia’s continued support, Pete applied to become a deacon for the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, they were deferred due to the young ages of their children, however, this opened the door for God to reveal other plans for their lives. As Tricia was pregnant with their 7th child and Pete was giving a keynote speech for area high schools, a student asked the couple if they had considered starting their own foundation. That seed began to take root that day and has been growing ever since.
On August 6, 2021, the Sisters of Life directed Pete to go down in the crypt at St Patrick’s Cathedral in NY and place his hand on the tomb of Cardinal John O’Connor to ask what he wanted of his life. A couple weeks later Pete received a phone call and was asked to take over as President of Pennsylvanians for Human Life where he was tasked with breathing life back into PA’s oldest Pro-Life organization founded in 1972. Pete acted as President, volunteer Director and main speaker for PHL from 2021-2024. He recruited a spiritual advisory board, academic advisory team, a dozen new speakers, medical advisory team and launched a student leader program amongst 20 local Archdiocesan high schools. In 2023, under Pete’s leadership, PHL gave 139 in person presentations to 12,000+ students from multiple states.
Over the past 20 years, Pete and Tricia have deeply experienced God’s tremendous Love, Forgiveness, Mercy, Healing and Grace. They genuinely love sharing their journey and very personal story with others. Their talks include a powerful combination of dating, love, marriage, theology of the body, post abortive healing, catholic apologetics, importance of the sacraments, Virtue vs. Vice, surrender, purification, parenting and living your best life now. Allowing God to be at the center of their marriage and family has led Pete and Tricia to experience the true Joy, Fulfillment and Happiness in their lives God intended for them all along.
One of their greatest moments recently was in 2023 when they had the privilege to share their testimony with 4,200+ attendees at the Knights of Columbus and Sisters of Life event, Life Fest, which is held just prior to the March for Life in DC. Pete and his good friend, Andrew Jacoby, started First Fishermen media in 2022. They have several podcasts such as, the Men for Life podcast, The Called, The Dominican option, From Kensington with Love, and much more media to come.
Pete loves sports. His favorites are basketball, baseball and watching the Pittsburgh Steelers. As a father, Pete is thankful to have coached their children and many other local children over the years, however, the couple’s greatest joy is just simply watching their children play and excel at a variety of different sports and activities while growing in their Faith. The families favorite places to spend time off are at the Beach in Ventnor, NJ and Disney World.
In 2024, Pete and Tricia officially launched their new non-profit,
“Mission Love and Life”.
The DeMaio Family- Pete and Tricia, Petey (18), Nicky (17), Alyssa (16), Jenna (13), Vincenzo (11), Gia (9), Giovanni (4)
Mission Love and Life is a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit—Your Gift is Tax-Deductible (EIN: 99-1396172).
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