#IceBucketChallenge comes to Love Park

CENTER CITY (WPVI) -- It's a social media sensation that's sweeping the nation through Facebook and YouTube and on Wednesday, it arrived at Love Park.

The Ice Bucket Challenge is bringing enormous attention to ALS, an illness that cripples and kills thousands of people every year.

All you have to do is pour some ice and water in a bucket and pour it over your head.

Before or after you're all wet, you challenge a coworker, friend or relative, to do the same, within 24 hours.

You then post your challenge online. If it's not met, they must make a donation to ALS.

Hopefully, a donation will be made whether they dump ice water on their head or not.

YouTube has seen a huge uptick in uploads just during the last week.

"It's been absolutely amazing. It's viral. It's across the world!" Terry Heiman-Patterson, M.D. of the ALS Hope Foundation said.

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There has been an astounding increase in donations.

"Once we put it on Facebook and the challenge started going viral, it was like magic," Jacquellyne Hengst of the ALS Hope Foundation said.

Last year from July 29th through August 8th, $25,000 dollars was donated nationally to the ALS Association.

This year, during the same time span, $2.3 million was donated!

It all started when a Boston College baseball player, who's been suffering from ALS since 2011, issued the first challenge last month!

Known as Lou Gehrig's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a progressive neuro-degenerative illness that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

The onset is insidious with muscle weakness and paralysis among the early symptoms.

And there is little advocacy.

"People living with ALS, they die in 2 years. They don't have time to go out and advocate. So it's up to us as Americans, human beings, people who care about people living with ALS to go out there and advocate for them," Heiman-Patterson said.

With campaigns like the Ice Bucket Challenge, there is more hope.