Over the past ten days an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has been raging through the States.

This Monday our Picture Editor at The Royal Gazette, David Skinner received a challenge all the way from Brenda McLean in Massachusetts. Education awareness on an illness called ALS is at the core of this movement. It has become a social media giant campaign that hopes to bring attention to this deadly disease.

To date to name but a few Justin Timberlake, Matt Lauer, Martha Stewart and the Kennedys have all done it.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has helped raise $2.3 million for the national ALS Association since July 29. That’s compared with raising $25,000 in donations during the same time period last year.

Here’s how it works: Dump a bucket of ice water over your head and nominate someone else to do the same.

Widow of slain US Presidential candidate Robert (Bobby) Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy nominated the current President, Barack Obama to take the challenge. He passed but is still donating money.

People have posted photos and videos of themselves on Facebook and Twitter, using #IceBucketChallenge. /*David has now challenged Mark Tatem, Raymond Hainey co-workers in Bermuda and his brother Alan Skinner to take the Ice Bucket Challenge.

What is ALS?

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” after the baseball player struck down at the height of his powers, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death.

When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost.

With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

For more information on ALS check out www.als.org.