'Ice Bucket Challenge' Helping Raise Awareness For ALS
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- A cool social media video challenge is raising lots of money to help fight ALS.
The "Ice Bucket Challenge" is helping raise awareness of the disease, and has helped increase donations 1,000-percent to the ALS Association.
The challenge has people dumping buckets of ice water over themselves, and sharing video evidence on social media sites like Facebook to call out their friends to complete the challenge and donate to the cause.
"ALS sucks. It's not something you chose, and it's tough," Sue Morris said, whose husband died from Lou Gehrig's disease.
Celebrities have helped push the cause by participating in the challenge, prompting some criticism over self-promotion. But those being helped by the increased awareness aren't arguing with the exposure.
"The skepticism is a matter of perspective. Whether you're skeptical or not, there's a message going out, and that message is people have ALS. They're dying from it every day, so are we going to argue about how it came up? No," Phil Thomas of the Golden West Chapter of the ALS Association said.
