10 Things You Need to Know About the ALS #IceBucketChallenge
The ALS Ice Bucket Competition has gone viral. The challenge started spreading like wildfire after Pete Frats, a former Boston College baseball player with ALS, posted on his Facebook. In just over 1 month, $100 has turned into almost $23 million dollars — all through social media and word of mouth. From Lebron James to George Bush to Oprah, celebrities across the world have been challenging each other and participating, all for a good cause.
10 Things You Should Know about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge:
1- This time last year the ALS foundation had only raised $1.9 million in the same time frame that $23 million has been raised this year.
2- People have shared more than 1 million videos on Facebook since June 1 and there have been 2 million mentions on Twitter since July 29.
3- After Pete Frates posted the challenge on his wall, athletes all across Boston started doing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Then various sports teams across the US. Then celebrities. Everyone joined in! Here is that post from July 31:
Map showing the spread of mentions of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge on Facebook from Boston outward.
4- “Meet the guy who made ALS ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ Go Viral” (A touching video about Pete Frates)
5- It all started on July 15 when a golfer in Florida named Charles Kennedy was nominated by a friend to do an ice bucket challenge that was not yet designated for a specific cause. He decided to link ALS to the challenge because his cousin was suffering from the disease. Charles Kennedy then nominated Pat Quinn in NY (who suffers from ALS), who then started the campaign with Pete Frates.
6- $8.6 million was donated to the ALS Association on Tuesday.
7- One ALS sufferer, who has had ALS for 14 years, decided to take the ALS ice bucket challenge to the next level.
8- Just to review the rules: once nominated, you have 24 hours to either give $100 to the ALS foundation or pour a bucket of ice water over your head (or hopefully both), and in turn nominate 3 new people to complete the challenge.
9- Take time to read up more about ALS here.
10- Here’s the list of just some of the awesome celebrity videos from the challenge:
Justin Bieber (2 ice bucket challengers)
And arguably one of the most impressive ice bucket challenges, done by Paul Bissonnette involving a helicopter.
Now it’s your turn, have you done the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge?
