When two Dorris Intermediate School students challenged the school’s principal and assistant principal to do the Ice Bucket Challenge, they knew they had no choice but to accept. The question, Assistant Principal Sara Doherty said, was how to make the most of it.

DIS students Jacob Long and Garrett Chapman posted the challenge on the school’s Facebook page Tuesday evening. After strategizing with Principal Kevin Stirnaman, an announcement was made Wednesday that the pair would accept the challenge, but only if the whole school participated.

Students were asked to buy $1 raffle tickets, with two winners getting to dump a bucket of ice water on Doherty and Stirnaman. Some students brought as much as $20, Stirnaman said, including a student who had recently lost an uncle to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease. In total, students donated $300 Thursday and Friday to the ALS Association.

Pete Frates, of Beverly, Mass., and an ALS patient, is credited with starting the Ice Bucket Challenge that has worked its way through pop stars, like Justin Timberlake, and geek stars, like Bill Gates. The movement has helped raise $53.3 million dollars from July 29 to Aug. 21, the ALS Association reports. Over the same timeframe one year earlier, the group raised $2.2 million.

But for a disease that is not as well-known as some others, the national attention brought by the Ice Bucket Challenge may have long term benefits, Barbara Newhouse, president and CEO of the ALS Association said.

“While the monetary donations are absolutely incredible, the visibility that this disease is getting as a result of the challenge is truly invaluable,” Newhouse said in an Aug. 12 statement. “People who have never before heard of ALS are now engaged in the fight to find treatments and a cure for ALS.”

Currently, there is only one drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ALS, which extends survival by two to three months. Consequently, ALS is 100 percent fatal, the ALS Association indicates.

On Friday, with the entire school gathered, 5th grader Taylor Murphy stood atop a picnic table and doused Stirnaman. The students roared as Stirnaman rose to his feet, pulled his shoulders back and walked for a short time. When he recovered, he prepared Doherty for her pending dousing with two words of encouragement.

“It’s cold,” Stirnaman told her.

Nathan Hall, a 6th grader, also standing on a picnic table, started do dump the bucket on Doherty, but he lost control for a minute and dumped only a little on her. She cringed, he righted himself and unloaded the bucket.

Doherty agreed, it was cold.