I have a challenge for all of my friends and followers. It is ALS Awareness Month and I would like us all to experience what someone with ALS deals with 24/7.
ALS Challenge, set the alarm on your phone for 5 minutes. Now, just sit or lie very still for those five minutes. By still I mean you cannot move, not even if you sneeze and need to blow your nose. This might feel like the longest 5 minutes of your life. That is what many with ALS experience every day as the disease progresses.
During ALS Awareness Month people are being asked to take this 5 minute challenge in an effort to raise awareness and funding for the ALS Therapy Development Institute. The ALS TDI fundraiser, , was launched by Sarah Coglianese in 2015 to bring a better understanding of this debilitating disease and hopefully raise money for research needed to find a cure. Sarah’s own experience with ALS, while raising a young daughter, leads her to believe that her disease will ultimately make her daughter stronger, braver, more loving, and empathetic.
As a father, I want my children to all of those things as well. That is why I am asking my own children to try the 5 minute challenge. There are even groups of people who take this a step further and give up something for an entire day, such as the use of hands or feet, not speaking, or spending the day in a wheelchair.
Once you experience what a person with ALS lives with, my hope is that you might consider donating to the #WhatWouldYouGive fundraiser and #EndALS. The goal this year is to raise $50,000 through our collective efforts. Up to $25,000 will be matched dollar for dollar by an anonymous donor. Together, we can raise funds to help make ALS a thing of the past. Research for ALS is grossly underfunded, even though someone is diagnosed with the disease every 90 minutes.