Have you ever felt chills up and down your spine in the heat of the summer? The ALS Foundation has promoted ALS Awareness with the virtual ice bucket challenge, and has raised over 100 million dollars.
We thought this would be a way we could remember our dear Resident Brother Camillus Dulude (who passed away earlier this year of ALS), bring our employees and Residents together for some fun, and at the same time make a contribution to help medical research for this disease.
After doing a bit of investigation, we decided to send the money we collected to the John Paul II Medical Research Institute, where all research follows the moral teachings of the Catholic Church.
The idea of the ALS ice bucket challenge is to video oneself getting ice water poured over you, post it on Facebook, or another social network, and then challenge another to do the same. When you challenge another, you then make a contribution.
While we didn’t post any videos, we take pictures of the several employees who were up to the challenge. Sister Mary Paschal was very happy to help by pouring the ice water on the participants!! Craig, one of our groundskeepers, was the last to go…we had two buckets left…yep, Craig got a double douse!
Following the ice bucket challenge, we were treated to a special guest Bingo caller – Father Tim Fairman from St. Theresa Parish across the street! He entertained us by matching numbers to his favorite Cubs or Bears players. He reminded us that “21” was his lucky number – the date his was ordained…and had some luck with that number in Vegas! Father Tim tried to up the ante and instead of winning quarters, he was offering a Cadillac, a large screen TV, a cruise ship, and the skunk that has been making himself comfortable at St. Theresa’s! The final Bingo game was a cover-all, which we usually our least favorite; but this game was exciting. Father was down to only ten balls, then nine, then eight…who was going to win? Finally, we had four simultaneous winners! They didn’t care to split the skunk, so they all won a dollar!! We all appreciated Father Tim’s visit, and hope he will come again.
Ice Bucket Challenge