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Since July 29, the Ice Bucket Challenge has been making its way through every social media outlet available. This week, the challenge hit home when one of my best friends, Chris Votsis, and our own sports writer, Nick Goralczyk called on myself and The Paper Inc. owner Ron Baumgartner to allow ourselves to have ice cold water dumped over us or donate to The ALS Association.

I cannot speak for Ron, but I chose to take part in the challenge because I feel I, personally, can give The ALS Association more exposure than money – and therefore actually help them raise even more money.

And Barbara Newhouse, president and CEO of The ALS Association, agrees.

In a news release on the ALS website, Newhouse said, “While the monetary donations are absolutely incredible, the visibility that this disease is getting as a result of the challenge is truly invaluable. People who have never before heard of ALS are now engaged in the fight to find treatments and a cure for ALS.”

ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. The ALS Association website explains, “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.”

The Ice Bucket Challenge is actually one way everyone can temporarily feel the effects of ALS that suffers experience every day of their lives. For a moment, when that ice water pours over your head and down your body, it takes your breath away and numbs your arms and legs. Fortunately, wrapping in a towel will eliminate those effects, but anyone who suffers from ALS does not get that relief.

Currently, there is only one drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ALS, which only modestly extends survival by two to three months. Consequently, ALS is 100 percent fatal. In addition to acclimating to the challenges that come with losing control of voluntary muscle movement, people with the disease progressively lose their ability to eat, speak, walk and eventually breathe.

“With more people aware and more people engaged in the fight against ALS, we are poised to work collaboratively with not only other ALS organizations, but also with pharmaceutical companies and academia to expedite new treatments for people impacted by the disease,” Newhouse said in the press release.

Since the Ice Bucket Challenge began on July 29, The ALS Association has welcomed more than 739,000 new donors to the cause and has received over $50 million in donations that continue to pour in.

I took the challenge this morning at Lakeland Christian Academy with LCA Administrator Joy Lavender, athletic director Tim Yocum and our guidance counselor Carmen Flores. We also had some additional help from Winona Lake Fire Department Chief Mitch Titus who provided more very cold water for us to be doused in.

I’m challenging Sgt. Chad Hill of the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department in the hopes he will call out all of sheriff’s department, Chad Kaltenbach of Warsaw and Liz Brock of North Webster.

Do your part. Take the challenge, donate and/or issue friends and family to do the same. Then send your own Ice Bucket Challenge videos to [email protected].