Up for Debate: What’s a little cold water for a good cause?
Imagine you are unable to move your arms, legs and body. Eventually, you will lose the ability to breathe without ventilatory support. That is the fate of someone diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative neurological condition also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
However, the ALS Association has received $100 million since last month alone. The Ice Bucket Challenge has helped raise funds for their donation. This challenge has taken social media sites by storm.
Many people, from your next door neighbour to celebrities, have recently taken the ice bucket challenge to raise awareness of ALS on a world-wide scale. The challenge is simply to get a bucket filed with ice water and throw it over themselves. Videos of the challenge are posted online on social sites like Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. The Ice Bucket Challenge has most of the media in a frenzy, but it is for a good cause.
The stunt has raised abundant money due to the increased attention. It’s likely that if not for the challenge, ALS would have continued as an obscure, little known condition. It takes social media sites to help push forward for research on different types of disease out there. At least $100 million has been raised since last month, in comparison to the same time last year, where only $2.8 million was raised, according to Forbes.
The opinion that water is being wasted by the bucket challenge doesn’t take into account the different ways of taking the challenge. According to the website Time, Matt Damon, a clean water advocate, took his challenge by using a bucket of toilet water. EC student Siobhan Bible took her challenge with pool water instead of clean water. Therefore, this method can still be used effectively without wasting water.
Regardless of people’s cause for taking up the challenge, the end result is still raised awareness for ALS research.
The more people raise awareness of ALS, the more money and time can be used to figure out a cure for the disease. If that requires throwing ice water over your head to do so, than so be it.
