Hearing the “Ice Bucket Challenge” might ring a bell but what about the “Ice Cup” challenge? The new trend is quickly spreading through school districts in California, including the Coachella Valley, to raise awareness for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, or DMD.
“I thought, well, let’s bring it to the valley,” Caroline Cota, principal of Desert Hot Springs High School, said.
It’s Cota’s first year as principal at DHSHS. She moved from Corona where the Stacy family lives, including one of the sons, Elijah.
“Elijah, this year, started a foundation to raise awareness and raise funds for research on this disease [DMD] which affects him as well as several of his siblings,” Cota said.
The point of using ice cups instead of ice buckets is to symbolize the children the disease affects.
When Elijah’s principal in Corona challenged all of her contacts, Cota hopped on the ice cup challenge train, too. All of the people she challenged followed through and challenged new people. Now, the challenge is spreading further.
“I know that there have been people in Pennsylvania who have actually picked this up already but it’d be really cool to see it rolling through the Coachella Valley and into Arizona and moving east from there.”
For more information on the challenge and DMD, visit: https://www.destroyduchenne.org/the-founder-1/
