DownpourBy Kate Smith

of Donations

Dancing in the Rain: Dance Team does the ice bucket

challenge for a bonding experience. They nominated West-

moore Dance Team from Oklahoma and a contestant from

So You Think You Can Dance. photo by Taylor Hinman

Splash: DECA was nominated by senior Austin Staebell. “I was

anxious before the bucket of ice-water pours down on me because I

know what is coming but I never know when it will hit me, ” junior

Monica Powers said. photo by Kristen Edelman

Cheer Up : Varsity Cheer was

nominated by DECA. “There has

been a massive amount of money

collected for ALS in such a short

period of time,” junior Madalyn Hyland said. photo by Kristen Edel-

man

Orchestra: Orchestra teacher

Debbie Martinez does the chal-

lenge while the orchestra plays

for background music. “We were

incorporating the activity that we

do in class with a teacher as a role

model,” senior Luke Houser said.

photo contributed by Casey Lundgren

08 Weekends/ Summer

Pranita Devaraju, 10Alaena Schmitz, 10Emily Lerdahl, 11 Emily Gilson, 11Amy Iltzsch, 12Isabel Chavez, 10Alex Istrati-Brown, 12Joe Runge, 10

Buckets and buckets of awareness

09 Student Life

Students did their part to show their support and raise donations for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association by partici-

pating in ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

TennICE: Varsity Tennis was nominated by senior Matt Horn-beck and they nominated nearly all of the tennis teams. “I felt

nervous before the ice got dumped, but we warmed up in a

teammates Range Rover afterwards,” junior Raymond Thai said.

photo by Madison Weaver

Chills On Guard: Color guard raised nearly $300 for this aware-

ness as a whole. Parents of color guard and band walked up and

down the bleachers with buckets to collect as much money as

possible in a certain amount of time at the MN football stands.

photo by Kaitlyn Forsythe

Drumroll Please: Seniors Maddie Vavricek and Michaela Van Riesen, and junior Sarah Annis get a bucket of ice-water

poured on them. “The ALS ice-bucket challenge was a great

opportunity for people to raise awareness and get the word out

quickly,” Van Riesen said. photo by Kaitlyn Forsythe

ALS is not just a disease; it is a challenge to

overcome and it drastically changes lives. It’s

not the most well known disease, so it wasn’t

getting as much support as it deserves.

Senior football player, Aric Nielsen, agrees

that they need all the support they can get. His

father recently passed from ALS, and he knows

all the rough patches you have to overcome.

“My team was fully supportive of the idea to

do the ice bucket challenge. We really are all for

one and one for all, and that’s really important

when you’re part of a team,” Nielsen said.

As for the challenge itself, it has been disputed

about whether or not it really helps the organiza-

tion. If people just did it to post on social media

and not donate, does it really benefit from the

challenge at all?

“Social media was a good way to spread

knowledge about ALS. I like that participants

were expected to donate whether they did it or

not. You had to do it with the right intentions,”

Nielsen said.

Most students at MN felt the same way. The

donations should take precedence over uploading

a video for a social site.

“People have just been doing the Ice Bucket

Challenge for fame more than to support people

who actually have ALS. If you’re doing it for

likes and not donating, that’s not enough,”

junior Quinn McFadden said.

The point of the challenge was to feel the

paralysis, the paralysis that ALS patients feel ev-

eryday, just for a few seconds as the cold water

gushes around you.

“You do the ice bucket challenge to feel how

they feel, and then donate money to help their

cause. Don’t do it just to post on social media;

the whole idea is to raise money,” junior Lily

Hock said.

The effort has raised over $115 million already,

and the ALSA can expect the donations to keep

pouring in!