It seems like every month there’s some sort of viral online challenge going out, where people nominate their friends and acquaintances to do something silly on video then post it to a social media site.
It’s easy to get a little fatigued with all of it, and dismiss the whole thing as a gimmick that’s blown whatever cause it’s representing out of proportion — especially in light of the myriad videos and pictures of people taking part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which seeks to raise awareness about Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Some of the more cynical among us have fairly observed that ALS accounts for a small fraction of disease-related deaths, and a more utilitarian approach would be to do a heart-disease-related challenge. True, perhaps, but those cynics are missing the point. Simply getting people talking about the disease and becoming more aware of its impacts is a huge success, whether it’s a disease that affects one or a million.
The impact these sorts of challenges can have was incredibly apparent last Sunday for the annual Terry Fox Run in Westlock. In years past the event has had one or two dozen people, but this year there was closer to four dozen.
One could attribute the increase to many things but the dozen lime-green Westlock Veterinary Centre T-shirts would indicate that business’s friendly competition with Westlock Motors drew some more people out of the woodwork.
Not to mention the firefighters in full bunker gear and their supporters, who responded to a challenge from Westlock Rural firefighter Mike Walmsley. Whether it’s a gimmick is completely irrelevant — it got people involved.
Few charitable events could be more appropriate for issuing these sorts of challenges, anyway. Terry Fox set out an incredible challenge for himself when he chose to run across Canada on a prosthetic leg while still battling the cancer that would ultimately claim his life.
People undoubtedly told him he was crazy to attempt it, and perhaps they were right. But he got millions of people in Canada and tens of millions more around the world thinking about cancer.
We would all do well to challenge ourselves to do better, to be better, and to do our small part to make this world a better place.
