The students of the University of South Carolina (USC) brought back the famous Ice Bucket Challenge. The USC Mental Health Needs Discussion (MIND) club launched the #SpeakYourMIND campaign on social media platforms in March to raise awareness for mental health.

The MIND club posted the video on Instagram and by May, over seventeen million people worldwide had participated in the challenge, mainly uploading their videos to Instagram.

The club was inspired by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from the summer of 2014, when three men living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) launched the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness for the condition. ALS is the loss of nerve and muscle control, eventually leading to potential paralysis.

Over time, many people forgot about the challenge, but since it proved to be so successful for raising money for ALS, the MIND club thought that bringing it back can help bring more attention to mental health, especially among young people.

“I think it is a good way to bring awareness because it started in South Carolina and within a week, it spread to multiple countries. I was nominated by two different friends – one from Florida and the other from Georgia,” Noah Malloy, sophomore, said.

The challenge also attracted participation from celebrities and influencers, which helped to promote it even more. This led to the campaign surpassing its fundraising goal of $500, ultimately raising over $400,000.

USC decided to choose this challenge because they knew it would probably get spread through social media quickly because of how unique the idea was,” Kylie McGovern, junior, said.

A common concern regarding the challenge was that the participants were forgetting the reason behind the challenge and what USC was raising awareness for. 

“I think USC saw how impactful it was for the ALS challenge and decided to do it. I think it definitely made an impact on people, but I do think some of the meaning behind it got lost in translation along the way. Overall, I think it’s a positive experience for people and creates memories, connection and awareness when done correctly,” Lillian Fink, math teacher at Jupiter Highschool, said.

Wade Jefferson, a former USC student, started the club after he lost friends to suicide. It is important to the club that the main reason behind the challenge is not overlooked as a trend, but as a way to educate and inform people on mental health.

“I think that if it’s back for a good cause, that’s great. This can obviously be used to raise awareness for any social or health issue people are concerned about, so I expect we’ll see more incarnations of the ice bucket challenge in the coming years,” Honey Smith, AP human geography teacher at Jupiter High School, said.

How the challenge works is a person gets nominated by being tagged on a social media post, they then have twenty-four hours to do the challenge and nominate someone else.

The USC MIND Club decided to create the hashtag #SpeakYourMIND alongside asking participants to tag the MIND club Instagram, in order for viewers of the challenge to be directed to their account to learn more about the cause.

Many students and staff of JHS participated in the challenge, some even doing it on school grounds. Many JHS sports  teams nominated other sports teams, which kept the challenge circulating around school. The Basketball team nominated the beach Volleyball team, who then nominated the JHS athletic director, Scott Selvidge.

“I was walking past DePasquale and Gilbert and they shamed me into it. I had neglected to do my challenge in the allotted time and was ambushed,” Michael DeLeonardo, AICE global and student government association, said.

Throughout the whole challenge, people often went viral for being funny and sharing their unique ways of having the ice water poured on themselves. 

Students at JHS have also come up with unique ways to do the challenge, including having a French foreign exchange student do it to them or having a tractor filled with ice-cold water be dumped on them. 

Even at the thought of getting iced poured on yourself, our school had many teachers excited to do it, especially because of the cause.  

“I was happy to do it. When they told me it was for Mental Health Awareness, it was a no-brainer. I also think they [her students] really wanted to pour ice water over my head. They work so hard in our course and are such wonderful people that I wanted to reward them a little, too,” Ms. Smith said.