I am probably* late to the party but get off me! I was only challenged yesterday!

The party I’m referring to is the Ice Bucket Challenge that’s been consuming social media lately, in which someone pours a bucket of ice on their head in an effort to bring awareness to the ALS association. The idea is that the videos raise awareness, and also that the people who refuse to risk pneumonia have to donate $100 to the cause. Of course, those things aren’t mutually exclusive, and you can do both if you want to.

Even if only a fraction of the people taking part in the trend end up actually donating, the publicity has to be a positive, right?

So today, after a friend passed the challenge on to me, I hopped on the bandwagon too. And let me tell you, on a rainy night in Brooklyn, it was COLD.

Below, witness the video of me and Detective Munch taking polar bear showers for the ALS Foundation.

ICE ICE DADDY

As per custom, I now need to pass the challenge along. But I want to do something a little bit different with my challenge and issue it to a group I belong to: the Dad Bloggers group on Facebook.

We’ve taken stands against negative advertising, a lack of changing tables in men’s rooms, and cancer, I figured we could add another cause. There are some 800+ members of the Dad Blogger Facebook group; I wonder how close we can get to everyone participating!

To kick things off, here are the five I’ve selected:

John Kinnear of Ask Your Dad Blog, Charlie Capen and Andy Herald of How To Be a Dad, Aaron Gouveia of The Daddy Files, and Chris Bernholdt of DadNCharge. (Apologies if you’ve already done it; now man up and do it again!)

Gentlemen, you have 24 hours (but nobody’s really counting) to complete the challenge and pass it on to five other bloggers from our group.

And because I’m not a psychopath like the person who challenged my three-year-old along with me (to be fair, my friend’s toddler challenged my toddler), the inclusion of your children is totally up to you.

But I bet one or two of them deserves to be doused with freezing cold ice water. I know mine did. Godspeed!

*definitely late. When the Today Show beats you to it, you’ve missed the boat.

Disclaimer: I don’t personally know anyone with ALS. Most of the knowledge I have comes from famous athletes, like Lou Gehrig (it’s often called ‘Lou Gehrig’s Disease’ and Pete Frates, a former baseball player at Boston College, my alma mater), which isn’t to say this cause is any less worthwhile. But there are plenty of other illnesses out there some of us may have more contact with that don’t have cool viral gimmicks to generate awareness and drive donations and they could use some love too. For me, it’s MS, so I’m going to donate here. Maybe there’s one that’s close to your heart. So whether you do the ice bucket challenge or not, please consider giving to a cause you care about.