Ice, ice baby: Five years and counting
Bucket Challenge still being used to fight ALS
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the ice bucket challenge for ALS, the social media sensation that caused seismic vibrations of goodwill to ripple across much of the world during the summer of 2014.
To commemorate the milestone, the ALS Association and the family of ice bucket challenge co-founder Pete Frates invite everyone to grab a bucket full of ice and head down to Copley Plaza at noon today to douse themselves in celebration and continue the hard fought battle against the deadly disease.
“We are still in awe over what’s been accomplished,” Julie Frates, wife of Pete Frates, tells me. “And the fact that Pete is still here to see it all is even more incredible.”
According to medical experts, Pete Frates shouldn’t be here. When the former Boston College baseball captain was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2012, doctors only gave him two to five years to live. That was over seven years ago. He’s watched many of his fellow ALS warriors die from the disease over the years but Pete is still here — fighting and inspiring people around the globe.
Five years ago, more than 17 million people took to Facebook and uploaded videos of themselves screaming and shivering with delight as they dumped buckets of icefilled water on their heads and challenged friends and strangers to do the same while also committing whatever money they could spare to fund ALS research.
The ice bucket challenge raised a whopping $220 million dollars to combat Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and that number continues to grow today.
But it did much more than that. It brought us all closer together as human beings.
Don’t tell me what a divided nation and world we live in because the ice bucket challenge is proof of the contrary. For several weeks in 2014, millions of people from different countries, cultures and political persuasions banded together as one for a common cause. If we could do it then, we can do it again now.
The ice bucket challenge remains a campaign for love on a global scale and a very personal one for Pete and Julie Frates. They had only been dating for a few months when their world was turned upside down by his diagnosis in March 2012.
While Pete’s parents and siblings rallied around him, Julie had an option to end the relationship and avoid the major challenges that were inevitable. But for Julie, it was never an option and the challenges that came with the disease would be theirs to face together, not Pete’s to grapple with alone.
The couple got married just as Pete was losing his ability to walk and talk while ALS attacked his once-impressive physique. Soon, Pete would be trapped in a wheelchair communicating only through a computer.
Still, he and fellow ice bucket challenge co-founders Pat Hughes and the late Andrew Senerchia, both of New York, put their brainpower and their network of friends and contacts together to create the greatest social media charity campaign the world has ever known.
Julie Frates was nine months pregnant when the ice bucket challenge first went viral in 2014.
“Our daughter Lucy came into the world as the whole world was watching us that summer,” Julie Frates remembers. “She’s almost 5 years old now and she’s so outgoing and perfectly fine in the limelight, just like her dad.”
Lucy has never heard her father speak. They communicate with their eyes and by touch. But their expressions of love are as strong as the bonds between any father and daughter, maybe stronger.
Lucy Frates will join her mom, Julie, and possibly even her dad (if the weather is just right) today at Copley Plaza. Grab yourself a bucket, fill it with ice and head down to say hello and also to say thank you for what Pete Frates has done for the rest of us.