A few years ago a close family friend was diagnosed with ALS. I remember the moment we found out. I walked into the kitchen and knew by my parents expressions that something terrible had happened. ALS or “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”, is a neurodegenerative disease that degrades the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, weakening the patient until he or she can no longer move.At first, the friend just started tripping more than usual, then he was confined to a wheelchair, and later unable even to talk. On Saturday, August 30, after a long battle with the disease, he died.

In mid-July, a group of people with ALS started the popular Ice Bucket Challenge. Jeanette and Anthony Senerchia, Pat Quinn and Pete Frates and his family were the first to popularize it and it has snowballed ever since.

Some have criticized the challenge arguing that people accepting the challenge don’t really care about ALS, it is a waste of water, or it does not promote long term change, but the reality is quite the opposite.

The ALS Association has raised over $110 million since July 29th, a staggering 3,500 percent increase from the same time period as last year. These numbers speak for themselves. If it wasn’t for the challenge, most of these donations would not be made. The money goes a long way for research and helping families affected by ALS.

Skeptics claim that many people accept the challenge for the wrong reasons and that accepting the challenge means you’re too cheap to donate to the cause. Scrolling through the newsfeed of facebook and instagram, you’ll see the videos everywhere and some don’t even include the link to the ALS Association website, but it still spreads awareness. At the end of my friend’s life, he loved watching all of the ALS ice bucket challenges of friends and celebrities. It made him so happy just to see people caring about ALS.

Before the challenge, if you asked people on the street what ALS was, very little of them would know and the few that would probably had it personally touch their lives. After the birth of the challenge, people have started wondering about it and looking it up online and becoming generally aware of its existence.

Now, almost everyone has heard of ALS and knows what it is. Awareness is the first step to grappling this tremendous problem.

As for some thinking people who accept the challenge are cheap, many people do the challenge as well as donate and others are not financially able. Many high schoolers taking the challenge do not have jobs or money to donate.

No one can be forced to donate money, but raising awareness is better than nothing.

Yes, not everyone who takes the challenge donates, but in the end, what will matter will not be the ones who didn’t donate, but the millions who did.