Ice Bucket Challenge: Are You Doing the Best Thing For ALS? (SSR)

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a viral trend that has been sweeping the world for the past few months, and I’ve heard that the challenge has raised millions of dollars for ALS research and treatment, but I haven’t heard much about what ALS actually is.

Originally, after scrolling through my Facebook feed over the summer, I saw quite a few of my Facebook Friends posting videos of themselves getting drenched in ice water. All of these posts had similar captions; “This is my ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and I was nominated by soandso and I nominate thisperson”. Honestly, I think I could’ve gone through this social media craze without ever finding out what ALS is!

Fortunately, when my mom and I were nominated, I sat down and did some research about ALS. I learned that ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Scleroses, also referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The degeneration of motor neurons stops the brain from having control over muscles in the body; this will eventually lead to paralysis and then death.

A few days after doing my Ice Bucket Challenge I was talking to a woman who had just recently done her own challenge, and she said that even after doing the challenge she didn’t know what ALS was. This got me thinking, do people doing the Ice Bucket Challenge know what they’re even doing the challenge for? So after going through my Facebook feed and searching for more videos on YouTube, I came to the conclusion that a lot of people don’t post what ALS is, or how people can help the organization, or encourage their Friends to raise awareness for ALS.

So my first point in this blog is: how’re we raising awareness for ALS if we aren’t posting what ALS is?

 The Ice Bucket Challenge, in my opinion, has turned into more of a trend then a way to raise awareness. More people are looking up funny Ice Bucket Challenges and Ice Bucket Challenge bloopers than looking up how to help fund ALS research or signs and symptoms of ALS. Now, I'm not writing this blog post to say that everybody that has posted their Ice Bucket Challenge video has gone without describing what ALS is, or doesn’t support ALS or ALS awareness. I’m writing this to encourage more people to do what the challenge was made for, which is of course to raise awareness about ALS, this bring me two my second point in writing this blog…

What’s the best way to support and raise awareness for ALS?

For me the best way to support and raise awareness for ALS was to write this blog, and to remind the people around me what the Ice Bucket Challenge is really about. For you it could be any number of things from raising awareness by posting a description of ALS with your next Ice Bucket Challenge, to donating money, or to going to the ALS Association website [http://www.alsa.org/]and finding out how you can help your community.