Crowd Gets Drenched To Mark 5th Anniversary Of Ice Bucket Challenge
BOSTON (CBS) – This summer marks five years since the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral and helped to raise millions of dollars worldwide in the fight against ALS.
To commemorate the occasion, the ALS Association hosted a special Ice Bucket Challenge in Copley Square. "To all the people living with ALS and their families, this is for you - let's find a cure!" an announcer said before the "in-unison" water dump.
ALS Association CEO Calaneet Balas explained, "It was fun, it was silly, it was viral, but it was so much more than that. This made ALS change forever."
"Rooted in Boston in 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge was the phenomenon that inspired 17 million people from around the world to drench themselves in ice water," the ALS Association said in a statement.
Challenge co-founders Pete Frates, the former Boston College baseball captain, and Pat Quinn of Yonkers, New York, were on hand for the event.
Other notable names at the ceremony included Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Boston Bruins forward Charlie Coyle.
So far, the Ice Bucket Challenge has helped to raise more than $200 million in the search for an ALS cure.
"It is a life-changing event for people in the ALS world," said Nancy Frates, Pete's mother. "We were the ones that this disease decided to enter our lives, but it was the public at large that took hold of these young boys' stories and poured ice water over their head and it could have stopped at that and it didn't."
She asked everyone to share their ice bucket challenge from five years ago or redo the challenge in another video. "Let's get this money in so that we can cross the finish line and rid the earth of this disease."