We were so humbled to have been selected as the 2014 NY RedBulls representative for the Nationwide MLS WORKS Community MVP Contest. Major League Soccer and growing up with the MetroStars was a huge part of our personal story. Being able to talk to your sports idols, and getting to a point where they actually knew your name, was a big deal for a shy 13 year old. I couldn’t be more humbled to now be recognized for representing my Dad’s legacy through his Fund for Entrepreneurship and Memorial Soccer Game by a team I still call family… Thank you, RedBulls and MLS – you repeatedly cement soccer as a huge part of my life.
Excerpted from the RBNY website: The Peter Cardiello Fund for Entrepreneurship
"Elisabeth Cardiello is a lifelong soccer player, fan and trainer. She grew up watching soccer, playing on her high school, club and college teams and is still involved as a trainer in her local youth program. Professionally, Elisabeth is a young entrepreneur who started her career in finance and since leaving that industry has found her passion and been involved in a myriad of entrepreneurial projects ranging from real estate to co-working space to starting Caffè Unimatic, Inc., a specialty coffee company with a very unique story (that she recently told onstage at TEDx Fulton Street). A percentage of profits from this company goes to benefit a fund that she started to commemorate a very special person in her life. Elisabeth lost her father (and coach, in every sense of the word) nearly 4 years ago and immediately created The Sir Peter L. Cardiello Fund for Social Innovation at Wagner College in his honor. Currently the fund is an award and scholarship for the graduating senior that’s had the greatest impact on the campus and community and who displays a spirit of entrepreneurship. She aspires to raise the funds needed to fully endow a program in her father’s name at the college to teach entrepreneurship to students the same way he taught her, simply, by doing. She has been organizing the annual Coach Peter Cardiello Memorial Soccer Game in Staten Island for the past three years to bring the community together to raise funds and celebrate the legacy of a man who loved playing and teaching the sport and who saw education as the world’s greatest gift. His legacy will undoubtedly live on through the work that Elisabeth is doing, and she is looking forward to hosting this year’s (4th annual) game on August 17, 2014. This honor would be extra special for Elisabeth, since she essentially grew up with the MetroStars, now RedBulls, attending every home game for the first 11 seasons of their existence. She even wrote her college essay on the transformative experience of how meeting the soccer players that she idolized brought her out of her shell. It’s safe to say that soccer has always been a catalyst in Elisabeth’s life and she hopes to pass that gift along to others."