(WJW) – Has your social media feed suddenly been full of people doing the Ice Bucket Challenge? No, you didn’t travel back in time 10 years — the trend is making a comeback, but this time with a new intended beneficiary.
It’s been more than a decade since the viral Ice Bucket Challenge launched in an attempt to raise awareness about ALS.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing progressive loss of muscle control, according to the Mayo Clinic.
In the summer of 2014, three men who were living with ALS started the global phenomenon of the Ice Bucket Challenge. As part of the trend, over 17 million people dumped ice cold water over their head, or otherwise soaked themselves with cold water, and challenged their friends to do the same.
Ultimately, more than $115 million was raised, according to the ALS Association. The Ice Bucket Challenge not only brought more attention to ALS but helped to revolutionize research surrounding the condition, experts told Nexstar’s KXAN last summer.
Now, organizers hope to gain that kind of interest with a new Ice Bucket Challenge.
It’s back this time with a focus on mental health.
A University of South Carolina student-run organization called MIND, which stands for Mental Illness Needs Discussion, launched the “Speak Your Mind Ice Bucket Challenge” at the end of March.
Participants are encouraged to donate to Active Minds.
Active Minds was developed by Alison Malmon, according to the website, after losing her brother to suicide. Initially, it started as a campus group with the goal of spreading the word that getting help was a sign of strength. Active Minds later became of 501(c)3 in 2003.
As of Wednesday, more than $290,000 had been raised for Active Minds as part of the latest Ice Bucket Challenge, surpassing the group’s listed goal of $250,000.
That’s also far more than the $500 goal USC’s MIND had set for the challenge.
“We definitely thought it was going to circle around South Carolina, maybe get around to some other communities and kind of just die off there,” Wade Jefferson, who founded USC MIND last February, recently told the university’s The Daily Gamecock.
In a statement on its website, the ALS association said it was “thrilled” that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge lives on in “new forms of activism.”
Posts tagged with #icebucketchallenge are already piling up on social media, though some, like content creator Glozell, opted to repost their original Ice Bucket Challenge videos.
