Members of the Citizen staff, myself included, completed the ALS ice bucket challenge this week. In case you've been living in a cave or been away on holidays, the challenge features people having buckets of ice water dumped over their heads and then challenging three others to do the same to raise social awareness and medical research funds for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This fatal condition paralyzes people due to the breakdown of important connections in the brain and spinal cord. According to ALS Canada, eighty per cent of people with ALS die within two to five years of diagnosis because they can't breathe or swallow. A small group of about ten per cent of ALS sufferers can live more than 10 years after diagnosis but are trapped within their own bodies.
The disease is no laughing matter and the ice bucket challenge sounds like a silly way to raise money and educate the public about ALS.
Yet the ice bucket challenge has been so incredibly successful, particularly over the past two weeks, that other non-profit organizations have sat up and taken notice.
According to an Associated Press report, the American ALS Association has raised $53.3 million in the United States from 1.1 million new donors since July 29.
The buzz online has been massive, particularly from the entertainment and sports stars who have posted videos of themselves completing the ice bucket challenge. Some of the more impressive videos include Montreal Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban sitting down for an entire dump truck full of ice water on a busy downtown street in his hometown of Toronto, and Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters spoofing the blood dump scene from Carrie and then challenging Stephen King. Tom Cruise, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift and even Kermit the Frog have done it.
Inspired by Marian Gaborik of the Los Angeles Kings, who laid down in front of a Zamboni and had it dump its contents on him for his ice bucket challenge, Lu Verticchio of the Prince George Spruce Kings and I completed our challenge Thursday afternoon. We were both called out by the Citizen's classified supervisor Derek Springall on Monday afternoon, after he took four buckets worth on Monday while sitting in the middle of Brunswick Street in front of the Citizen office. I was also challenged on Tuesday night by Coun. Brian Skakun.
Verticchio and I parked ourselves on the pavement directly in front of a Zamboni outside of the Coliseum and in full view of city hall (take that, Brian!) and proceeded to have the Zamboni unleash a wave of cold water and ice over us. In case you don't believe we had the cajones to do such a thing, see the video for yourself at the Citizen's YouTube channel www.youtube.com/user/PGCitizen.
Naturally, there are the naysayers, who have no problem pouring their own cold cynicism on anything positive. "Why don't they just donate instead of making fools of themselves and sharing it with the whole world?" That's true, but the vast majority of that money that has come in for ALS research in the past month wouldn't have showed up without the foolishness.
What the campaign has shown other non-profits is that there are other ways to raise a dollar and public interest, rather than the traditional emotional and rational appeals. There's no harm in some fun, particularly when the outcome is so positive.
Unfortunately, a few of the challenges have caused some harm, including four Kentucky firefighters who were seriously injured this week, one of them critically, when they were dumping water on college students and the ladder on the fire truck got too close to a high-voltage wire.
That tragedy shouldn't discourage anyone from doing the ice bucket challenge. Being smart and safe while having fun is the golden rule. In this case, it has also raised millions of dollars for a great cause, just like men growing a moustache in November, a man having his chest hair waxed for cancer research (Verticchio did that stunt a few years back) or any other fun and slightly uncomfortable way to attract attention.
Keep the money and cold water flowing, particularly Peter James, Allan Wilson and Janet Marren, the three people I've challenged. And if you don't get challenged, no problem. You can make a donation to ALS Canada at als.ca.
