'We can see the light,' Pete Frates' mother says ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has researchers closer to cure
BOSTON – The tradition of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge continued Wednesday in memory of the late Pete Frates.
Frates' family and friends hosted the ninth annual Ice Bucket Challenge on the steps of the Massachusetts State House.
Frates, who died from ALS in 2019, started the challenge as a way to raise awareness about the disease. The social media movement went global, and has since raised more than $220 million worldwide.
"It's why I wake up in the morning," Pete's mother, Nancy Frates, said on Wednesday on the importance of honoring her son's memory.
Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a new treatment for ALS thanks to a study partly funded by the Ice Bucket Challenge.
"That money has had results. We were not even in the tunnel in 2012 looking for a cure. Not only are we in the tunnel now, but we can see the light at the end of it and we are getting closer and closer," Nancy Frates said. "We're going to get to the light at the end of the tunnel. So we're going to be here every August until a cure, until that happens."
Nancy Frates said she still recalls the day her son was diagnosed with ALS.
"His words rang so true to me that night when he said 'We've been given an opportunity to change the world. We are going to change the trajectory of this disease.' Well we did that. But the mission is to find the cure," she said.
