Take a chill pill

Unless you are 100% unplugged from all forms of social media or news (and in which case, why are you wasting time reading my blog??), you’ve heard about or seen the ice bucket challenge. A fund raising campaign for ALS Association, this started July 29 with a simple premise of either donating money to the association or or dumping a bucket of ice water on your head (and possibly also donating money).

I’ve been a little surprised at the Grumpy Gus responses of some people on Facebook; I’ve read  comments that it’s just an attention-grabbing behavior by whomever does the challenge, it’s a huge waste of water, people are just sick of it for no particular reason and so on. I call BS on all that for a couple of reasons.

First, this disease is awful. I never got to meet my father-in-law because he died from it before I ever met my husband and by all accounts it was a horrible, horrible way to go.

Second, this campaign has been highly effective in both raising the awareness of the disease and in raising money. Last year, the association had raised under half a million dollars compared to nearly $15 million to date.

Third, I don’t care if you dump a tea cup or a trash barrel full of ice water – it’s the idea that counts to me.

The disease is horrible and this viral video phenomenon has raised over $15 $41 million (I wrote this post yesterday and the numbers jumped between then and now). That’s a lot of money that can do a lot of good.

Kent was challenged to do this and you can see how he did it on Facebook (in a hotel with an ice bucket and yes, he's donating cash as well).