The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Two years after his speech and induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Lou Gehrig died two weeks before his birthday at the young age of 39 on June 2^nd, 1941.  70 years later, after 7 decades of technological development, a fad was sweeping the internet called the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.”  Basically the challenge entailed recording oneself dumping a bucket of ice water on their head, stating who challenged them, and challenging 3 other people to do it.  If the 3 nominees don’t complete the challenge within a 24 hour period of being challenged, they must make a donation to ALS research.

The Ice Bucket Challenge didn’t originally start as a fundraiser for ALS, rather, the first few actually went towards cancer research.  It wasn’t until July 2014 that the first recorded Ice Bucket Challenge was linked to ALS.  At this point, the challenge had not yet been linked with ALS, challengers would simply donate to a charity of their choice.  After the challenge began to be linked with ALS, it spread like wildfire.  By the time the fad began to die out, over 2.4 million posts had been made to Facebook along with thousands of donations to ALS research.  With plenty of ALS foundations across the globe, donations amounted to approximately $250 million.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge just goes to show the lasting impact that Lou Gehrig has left on the world.  Although it is rather indirect, the disease would not have had this much publicity at this point in time if it weren’t for him.  These foundations wouldn’t have been as well known, ALS would have never become known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”, and they wouldn’t have raised nearly as much money in that summer. It’s quite amazing how one person, one action, one little piece of history can still have so much relevance over 70 years later.

Celebrities like Tom Hanks completed the challenge, causing it to go even more viral.