Participate in the Wilmington Community Ice Bucket Challenge August 29

The Wilmington Rotary Club is sponsoring a town-wide community Ice Bucket Challenge on Saturday, August 29 at Rotary Park. The event starts at 10 a.m., rain or shine.

Everyone is invited to come and take the challenge and bring a donation of any amount. One hundred percent of all donations will go to ALS research.

All ages are welcome to participate and there will be plenty of buckets, ice and water on hand for all.

August is ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Month. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Eventually, people with ALS lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement, which often leads to total paralysis and death within two to five years of diagnosis. For unknown reasons, veterans are twice as likely to develop ALS as the general population. There is no cure, and only one drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) modestly extends survival.

If you can’t attend, but still want to donate, you can mail donations to: Wilmington Rotary Club, P.O. Box 503, Wilmington, MA 01887

The ALS Association has created resources to help people interested in participating in the challenge this year, including a humorous infographic and instructional video. These materials also provide suggestions for people living in drought areas as to how they can participate without water.

Last year, more than 17 million ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos were posted to Facebook and these videos were watched by 440 million people a total of 10 billion times. More than $220 million was raised globally with $115 million going to The ALS Association, which is putting these dollars to work funding exciting new initiatives to find treatments and a cure for the disease through research, care services and public policy. To read more about progress since last year, visit www.ALSA.org/progress.

For more information on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, please visit www.ALSA.org/icebucketchallenge.