Buckets, ice, and a mission—Everett High School students are stepping up for mental health awareness by joining the USC Mind Ice Bucket Challenge. The challenge, which has been making its way across social media, encourages students to dump a bucket of ice water over their heads, post a video, and nominate others to do the same.
The University of South Carolina started their campaign ‘Mental Illness Needs Discussion’ earlier this year in March. Their new ice bucket challenge has blown up over social media and now has spread locally through Everett High School students. The instructions are simple: first, you have to be nominated by someone who has already done the challenge. You then have to pour a bucket of ice water over your head, record it, post the video, and tag others that you’d like to nominate to join in, all within twenty-four hours of being nominated.
“This challenge is a good cause to raise attention to an all-around the globe issue. I believe that there is a balance of both fun and raising awareness of a serious issue, which significantly helped the challenge blow up,” freshman Emely Reyes said.
But behind the freezing, cool water is a deeper purpose—encouraging conversations about mental health and showing support for those who may be struggling, whether silently or openly.
“Anyone curious enough to learn what the challenge was would’ve done a quick research to find out why we do this challenge and where it originated . Others would post about the challenge more in-depth, explain its origin, and explain its purpose. I feel like this just made the challenge matter since it brought attention to a big issue like mental health,” sophomore Anthoid Khanal said.
From the front lawn of their houses to the back of the high school, buckets are flying, and videos are spreading.
“I’ve heard about the challenge and saw a lot of people doing it online, like TikTok, but mostly on Instagram. Sooner or later, it got into my close circle, and I was nominated. I did the challenge because I think mental health is really important and needs to be talked about more, and it was a fun way to support a good cause,” sophomore Darwin Garcia Hernandez said.
“The USC Mind Challenge proved to me how connected we all are, even if it doesn’t seem like it. It started at one place and spread throughout the country within weeks, even reaching our close friends, coaches, and teachers. This brought back an old trend from the previous ALS ice bucket challenge, and nostalgia followed,” Khanal said.
Even though this challenge was for a good cause, students like freshman Krivi Maharjan say that they feel that the real cause of the challenge was lost since it got too popular. “I got nominated and decided to do the challenge since it’s for a good cause, it helps others, which makes it better. Honestly, I do think the challenge made people think and see about mental health awareness, but I feel that it lost that significance when people started over-nominating people and just showing they were doing it for fun. But the challenge did bring awareness to mental health, which is all that matters,” Maharjan said.
“The challenge raised awareness about mental health and got people talking about it more openly, even if some people did it just for fun, at least it got the conversation started, but mostly everyone knew why they were doing it,” Garcia Hernandez said.
This goes to show that students are stepping up, not just for fun, but to show how mental health matters, not just at Everett High but also in general. To students, it is more than just a viral trend- it’s a way to get people talking about mental health and show support for those who might be struggling.
