The ALS care and research program raised six times as much money looking for a cure in the last two weeks as they did during the same two weeks last year. All thanks to the ice bucket challenge.
During the last two weeks the foundation raised $7.6 million, as opposed to $1.4 million last year.
The foundation raises money to fund researchers looking for a cure for ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which is a neurological disorder. There is currently no cure.
Typically, those who donate to the foundation are friends and family of someone with the disease. It's a challenge for the foundation to spread the word because it's a complex condition to explain and there are no survivors, as The Wall Street Journal reports.
The spike in donations is likely attributed to the ice bucket challenge that has been trending on social media. The challenge works as follows: someone records themselves dumping a bucket of ice water over their head, posts it on social media and then tags friends to do the same.
The challenge is raising awareness for the disease, as in the past 30 days over 118,000 tweets were tagged with #icebucketchallenge.
Celebrities, politicians, students, adults, and people of all ages are participating in this challenge.
"Our whole town got involved, as well as my husband's older siblings and their friends on Facebook, so it just kind of blew up and it was nonstop," Jeanette Senerchia, of Pelham, N.Y., tells WSJ.
