ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: Donate Even If You Took the Challenge

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Have you joined the bandwagon, or more proper to be called the "bucketwagon" lately? Perhaps everyone who has been active online or on mainstream media has heard of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge  which is now a fad among celebrities worldwide, including our local talents here in the Philippines. The social phenomenon is still going strong and filling news feeds from mainstream to online media.

From Kris Aquino to Vice Ganda, from Anne Curtis to even popular TV broadcasters like Anthony Taberna and Korina Sanchez, and also non-showbiz citizens who probably thought "Why not? It's for a good cause!" It seems like every celebrity is getting in on it, from pop stars to athletes to politicians, as well as millions of ordinary people. They all took a video of themselves and posted them online for everyone to see. But don't be too judgmental because they did it for a cause, even though its majority for publicity.

Celebrities from all over the world drenched and soaked themselves with cold water to raise awareness for the ALS disease. You need to donate money to the ALS Association within 24 hours of being nominated. The challenge started in Massachusetts with former Boston College baseball player Pete Frates, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2012. It has quickly gone from a fundraising campaign to a viral Internet sensation. It’s annoying. But it’s working.

The challenge requires everyone to take the ALS Ice Bucket challenge by dumping a bucket of ice water on your head, and then nominate the next people to take it. Everyone is expected to donate some amount to the study of the ALS disease,.....even if they took the challenge. How will the campaign work if everyone will just take the challenge and donate nothing?


"Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease or as motor neurone disease (MND), Charcot disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed." - alsa.org

I might as well copy-paste the very technical description of the disease since I know very little of medical terms. But you can get to know more about ALS from the ALS Association official web site.

By now, our Facebook feed is likely full of videos of  even our friends completing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Will you be joing the bucketwagon too? It would be more fun if the ice bucket originally contained a few bottles of our favorite beers, so right after the challenge we could all drink up the booze to heat up the chill.