Costa administration completes Ice Bucket Challenge

By Audrey Williams
Staff Writer

Dumping buckets of ice has not only kept millions cool during the summer, but has also raised awareness to Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenrative disease that causes muscle weakness and eventually paralysis.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is to dump a bucket of ice water on the participant, or to donate $100 to the ALS Association within 24 hours. The feeling of cold water is meant to represent the struggles that people with ALS live with. Since July, the ALS Association has raised over $100 million, with more than 3 million people donating.

“The challenge made people aware of the struggles and symptoms people with ALS have to go through everyday,” freshman Miles Choromanski said. “The water was very cold and I couldn’t imagine feeling like that all of the time.”

The Mira Costa administrative team including Principal Ben Dale, and Vice Principals Ian Drummond, Debbi Hofreiter, Jon Shaw, and Marianne Ramos completed the challenge in late August. The administration completed the challenge in the pool to show their support in the conservation of water during the California drought.

“I didn’t want to get in trouble by interest groups,” Dale said. “By the time I got challenged, there was starting to be a little push back about the wasting of the water, so I decided to do it in the pool.”

The administration was nominated by Costa athletic trainer Tim Cooper and Marina High School band director John Mcgilligan. Costa nominated the administration teams from Loyola High School, Redondo Union High School, and Palos Verdes High School. Redondo plans on completing the challenge at their first rally.

“It’s so fascinating that this many people in our community participated in raising awareness for a disease a lot of us did not know about before,” freshman Katharine Rogerson said.