Social media has gone viral with tons of videos of people – including athletes, celebrities, musicians, students, teams, bands, even families – taking on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in order to raise awareness and donations toward the ALS association.

People have a choice to either donate money or take the Ice Bucket challenge or do both. The ice bucket challenge accepters must dump a bucket of ice cold water on themselves, record it, post it on social media, inform people where to donate and nominate three other people or groups to do the same within 24 hours.

Music major Josemanuel Fraire said, “What I think about the Ice Bucket Challenge is that it started as a good cause, but it has evolved into a trend, which could lead to the advantage of using it for a different purpose; for example, self promotion.”

How did this all begin? It started with Pete Frates, a former Boston college baseball player who was diagnosed in 2012 with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is a growing neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

In later stages it leads to paralyzation, trouble with breathing, eating and eventually speech loss. Although there is no known cure yet, the ALS association has devoted $99 million to find effective treatments and a cure for people with ALS. With the popularity of the challenge, donations have reached to $94.3 million.

The ALS association has received donations from previous donors and from 1.7 million new donors, which consist of ordinary people and celebrities such as Charlie Sheen, WWE Superstar Triple H, Taylor Swift, The Foo Fighters, Jimmy Fallon, The Roots, Kristen Stewart and so on.

Cerritos College students tend to think it’s more an awareness for the challenge, as opposed to the actual ALS disorder itself.

Tamantha Bumma, an environmental science major, said, “I think it’s a good idea to spread awareness in places that are not going through a drought … personally, I wouldn’t do the Ice Bucket Challenge because I don’t want to add to the drought, but I’m down to donate.”

Jackie Sanchez, a history major, added, “Although it’s fun to watch all the Ice Bucket Challenge fails, I am not a big fan of it because, at first, it was a way for people to show their way of donating, but now it seems that it has become a trend.”

If you’d like to learn more about ALS or if you would like to donate, you can visit the ALS Association website.