In the summer of 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge was created as a fundraising campaign for ALS research. Over a decade later, the challenge resurfaced with a new purpose.
Started by a group of students at the University of South Carolina, the 2025 Ice Bucket Challenge is meant to raise awareness for and decrease the stigma around speaking about mental health struggles.
The movement started as a campaign by the university’s Mental Illness Needs Discussion club to raise funds for the non-profit organization Active Minds in Washington, D.C. According to NBC News, Wade Jefferson, junior at USC, founded the MIND club after two of his friends died by suicide.
Since its inception in March, the movement has spread across the country, with students and celebrities posting the challenge on Instagram with the hashtag SpeakYourMIND.
To participate in the challenge, students post videos of themselves pouring buckets of ice water over their heads, tagging two to five friends and inviting them to join in. If tagged, participants have 24 hours to respond with their own challenge video, tagging more people and spreading the challenge.
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According to a recent USA Today article, the #SpeakYourMIND challenge has raised over $300,000 in donations to Active Minds.
Audrey Feagans, sophomore in Social Work, said she participated in the challenge to raise awareness for men’s mental health in support of her brother. She believes the challenge gained traction so quickly due to the nomination aspect.
“It grabs attention to ‘Why?’” Feagans said. “Why are people pouring water over themselves? Why are we talking about the #SpeakYourMIND challenge? That’s a big thing when I look at it, because it’s a chain. It keeps going.”
Delaney Umbleby, sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, also participated in the challenge after being nominated by her friends.
“Bringing awareness to mental health in general was really important to me,” Umbleby said. “Also specifically making sure people are able to speak out and get the help they need for just any sort of mental health thing that they’re going through. I just think it is important because it is historically stigmatized, and it’s just nice to see it as a society, how we’re moving away from that.”
According to the National Mental Health Alliance, one in five U.S. adults experiences mental illness each year, however, only 47% of those people receive care.
Umbleby said she feels this campaign has been an important step in breaking the stigma surrounding seeking mental healthcare.
“I think it’s really important that we as a society are getting better about destigmatizing (mental health),” Umbleby said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and most people will need mental health counseling or just even therapy or something along those lines … It’s always okay to ask for help.”
Despite the attention the challenge has gained on social media, Nicole Evans, assistant director of marketing at the University’s Counseling Center, emphasized that it is important to remember the focus behind the viral content.
“Challenges like this one may risk oversimplifying the problem,” Evans wrote in an email statement to The Daily Illini. “There’s no correlation between awareness and better managing a mental health concern you may have. There’s no replacement for regular counseling, treatments and consistently managing the condition.”
Evans also stressed that raising awareness is only the first step to combating mental illness. She wants students to remember that when dealing with mental health concerns, it’s always best to talk to a professional.
While the #SpeakYourMIND challenge may not directly give help to those dealing with mental health conditions, it sparks conversation and inspires people to seek the help they need.
When doing the challenge, Feagans said she talked about it extensively among her friend group.
“Even like speaking to my friends about it, I was telling them ‘Hey, let’s remember what we’re doing this for,’” Feagans said. “And so we sat there and we had a conversation about mental health, about what we can do to support each other, what we can do to support those around us, what we can do to support people we don’t even know.”
Social media has widely been regarded as being detrimental to one’s mental health, especially for teenagers. According to Pew Research Center, “Social media is the top reason parents give when asked about what most negatively impacts teens,” with 44% of parents saying it has the biggest impact on their children and 22% of teens saying they’ve experienced negative effects themselves.
Feagans said she views the #SpeakYourMIND challenge as one of the few good things that have come from social media. Because of all the bad that is often highlighted, she believes that it’s important to “be able to remind ourselves that social media can be good for mental health,” with positive movements like this one.
While the social media trend can be a great way to start conversations around mental health, Evans says it’s important to continue them beyond the online context and into our personal lives.
“Peer influence can be a great way to ensure people are taking care of their mental health,” Evans wrote. “However, we know that one-on-one interaction is more personal and persuasive.”
Overall, Feagans said that she hopes that conversations around mental health will continue, long after this challenge dies out.
“Be out there, still speak about it,” Feagans said. “Stand up about it. Raise your voices about it. Be aware. Do research about mental health. Be there for one another.”
