Ephrata restaurant nominates businesses to complete Ice Bucket Challenge
Wanda's Country Cafe owner Wanda Fencl pours a bucket of ice water over Brenda Gastelecutto outside the restaurant Sunday. Employees did the Ice Bucket Challenge, which aims to raise awareness for ALS, as a group to inspire other Basin businesses to do the same.
Wanda's Country Cafe owner Wanda Fencl, center, pours a bucket of ice water over Lisa Bera, right, and Zoie Allen, left, outside the restaurant Sunday. Employees did the Ice Bucket Challenge, which aims to raise awareness for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), as a group to inspire other Basin businesses to do the same.
EPHRATA - Ephrata resident Shasta Bonneville has done the Ice Bucket Challenge three times over the past couple of weeks.
The first time was by accident, she said.
"I walked out when my kids were doing their challenge and got wet," said Bonneville.
To really make it count though she redid the challenge, that time getting soaked with a lot more water and a lot more ice.
Bonneville just completed her third challenge this past Sunday - a group challenge she did with fellow employees of Wanda's Country Cafe.
The Ice Bucket Challenge, which requires participants to dump ice over their heads and/or make a donation to an ALS charity of their choice, has gone viral. Videos of individuals and groups completing the challenge continue to pop up on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter - even weeks after the challenge first started.
As of Monday, the ALS Association received $79.7 million in donations since July 29. By comparison, the association received $2.5 million in donations during the same period (July 29 to August 25) last year.
The ALS Association has also counted 1.7 million new donors this year.
Bonneville said like herself, many of the restaurant's employees have already done the Ice Bucket Challenge. They decided to do it as a group to inspire other Basin businesses to accept the challenge as well, she said.
"A lot of us have already done the challenge and made our donations," said Bonneville. "But we wanted to do something more, so we came up with the business challenge to get other businesses to help us raise awareness for ALS."
She said employees decided to nominate fellow Ephrata businesses Pita Pit, Country Deli, SynerJized and D.K's Drive-In in addition to the Lakeview Golf and Country Club in Soap Lake. They all have seven days to complete the challenge.
Bonneville said the challenge is owner exempt, meaning the owners don't have to be the ones who get ice water dumped on them.
"They can be the ones dumping the water," she said.
Business owners can also skip the actual dumping part of the challenge and choose to just donate to an ALS charity instead, said Bonneville. And it can be one person who gets the ice water shower or a whole group, she said.
"We just want these businesses to take this challenge and run with it," said Bonneville.
And of course, the businesses they nominated to do the challenge have to nominate other businesses as well, she said.
"We just hope this grows and continues to raise awareness for ALS here in the county," said Bonneville.