PROVIDENCE – What power do we have in our lives to leave this Earth better than we came into it? How do any of us leave a mark more sustaining than the memories and stories that live in the hearts and minds of our family and closest friends?

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge didn’t start out wanting to address such lofty concerns. It had no business or marketing plan. There were no identified target audiences, nor customized approved messages. There was no timeline. There was no organizing committee. There was no staff managing anything. No start date, and as of this writing, no end date in sight.

It began in the home of Pete Frates, former captain of the Boston College baseball team. At 29, he is now completely paralyzed and has lost his natural speech, due to ALS, when the disease began its onset a few years ago.

In the summer of 2013 he married his wife, Julie. Pete and Julie, together with Pete’s mother, Nancy, had formed the Pete Frates Fund.

They had heard that an ice bucket challenge had been a fun way other groups in other parts of the country had raised as much as $60,000 for an ALS group or a cancer cause. They thought that this might be fun to do during a hot summer, and with the goal of raising some money for ALS research.

Begun in the environment of organized sports with its built-in competitive nature, the Challenge got off to a strong beginning.

There were multiple components – dump ice over your head, take a video of you doing it, say something about ALS on the video, challenge people by name. Make a contribution. Post it to your social media channels – primarily Facebook, but also Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and others. It had many moving parts.

Within literally minutes of the first challenge, social media was abuzz with the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS. Teams challenged teams. CEOs challenged CEOs. Hospital staff and doctors took the challenge, as did ALS researchers. Children got into the fun; so did celebrities, from Beyonce to Bill Gates. Even ALS patients and their families were dousing themselves in ice.

And guess what? They were also donating. They were donating a lot. And often.

The numbers kept climbing
As the PR consultant for the ALS Association of Massachusetts I watched the totals of online donations, alone, starting to grow, from $50,000 to $100,000 to $300,000.

Today, funds raised have gone over more a half-million dollars in Massachusetts, not counting mail-in donations, which are now being delivered in boxes to the Norwood office. A company called Atlantic Mechanical Contractors of Weymouth gave one of those oversized checks for $18,0000.

Only one ambush interview
The CEO of the ALS Association Massachusetts chapter, Lynn Aaronson, was on a media tour out of control – this TV station wanted her, a radio station was next, could she come and dump ice over CNBCs anchor person – live at 2 p.m. on national TV – at Biogen Idec – where a challenge had been issued by MassGeneral ALS docs.

One interview was with WGBH in Boston; it was the only one to be very disappointing. This was early on in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Aaronson arrived and was rushed into hair and makeup [they do hair and makeup on Boston TV]. Just as she was going onto the set, she learned that this was a confrontational interview: there was a young PR person who was going to challenge the efficacy of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

With no time to think and certainly the seasoned professional, Aaronson handled it with aplomb, and the station soon received much “challenge” from the ALS community who were appalled at the “set-up” of the interview.

Controversy equals ratings, I suppose. But, really? A week later, and I wonder what they are thinking now? The next day, WGBH's Emily Rooney doubled down and did another report asking if journalists themselves should do the challenge.

Seizing the opportunity
We soon realized that the opportunity here was more than one-time donations or a collection of videos (estimated to be over 1.2 million unique videos posted to date).

It was how do we expand the flock, with all these new people. Data shows that only 50 percent of Americans have any knowledge of ALS – or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. But now we have an opportunity – an educable moment – something that can’t be lost. When people click onto the ALS website to donate, they also get to read what the disease is about.

I watched Facebook “LIKE” numbers triple. And Twitter numbers increase by 1,000 percent.  We liked everyone back; posted as many videos and messages as could be typed in one day; Twitter messages were RT’d, and followed back.

This weekend was the first moment to stop, catch our breath, and contemplate. Not just locally, but nationally.

There are two walks coming up – one on the North Shore and one in Boston. And there’s the 20th anniversary of the Ride for ALS, which is a short- and long-distance bike-riding event. Should we form ALS Ice Bucket Challenge teams at the Walks? Will we invite everyone who did this to come together for an Ice Bucket reunion? This is also a unique opportunity to think out-of-the-box in care-giving and research. National and local offices around the country are getting the best advice and putting that plan together now.

Oprah takes the plunge
Late Friday night I remembered that Oprah had tweeted she was going to accept the challenge, but she needed to “find a bucket.” I noticed that she hadn’t posted anything since, so I direct tweeted her – “Oprah, did you find a bucket?”

In 30 seconds she direct tweeted me a response – “Yes, I found a bucket and I’ll post my challenge soon” – along with an Instagram video of her filling an ice bucket in her kitchen.

Oprah tweeted me. [OK, maybe we were two PR people tweeting each other – but it was Oprah’s PR person]. About an hour later, there was her video. And I tweeted back, “Go Team ALS,” and sent her a photo/sticker of an ice bucket declaring: “I took the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.” OK, this is getting a little crazy now.

As I write this story, the Massachusetts chapter has crossed the half-million dollar mark. The national amount raised has exceeded $13.3 million. The end point still seems a bit off in the distance.

Mark Zuckerberg just did his challenge and challenged the CEO of Twitter and he challenged the CEO of T-Mobile. Donations are in the $10’s of thousands at that level. And so on…

Time Magazine has a map showing where it all started and how it spread – the map shows a dark patch over Massachusetts – with all these streams of networking messages and videos. If you could zoom in like a Google Earth search, I wonder if you would see Pete & Julie Frates’ house.

A labor of love
ALS takes most of its victims within five years. Pete has had ALS for three years. Julie and Pete will welcome their first baby into the world anytime now. While all the ALS staff (and PR consultants) have been chasing the tail of the dog, literally wondering what big thing was going to happen next, it’s been a labor of love.

At a time when bad things in the world seem so much out of hand, maybe it was the world collectively saying they felt like throwing a bucket of water over our heads and starting over.

Putting some joy in our lives. Giggling, laughing, having fun on social media, donating money, being part of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that has tied the world’s together in a long and unending string. In emergency cardiac care there is something called the CPR chain of survival. This is another unbroken chain. It's true that no one survives ALS today. The research community says that we're on the verge of remarkable breakthroughs, and the ALS registtry is in full swing. Think what $10 million in ice bucket money can accomplish.

No PR person dreamt this up. No techy guru figured out how to make it happen. I looked up what Pete Frates studied in college – he was a double major – history and communications.

It’s popular for celebrities to name their children unusual names. I’ll put my suggestion in the baby-naming hat for Peter and Julie's baby – “Ice” Frates sounds really right to me – he or she will always remember what Dad lived for.

As Pete continues on his path, I hope he finds peace in knowing about the mark he is leaving – one very few of us ever get to do.

Nancy Thomas is president of Tapestry Communications.

UPDATE: As of Saturday, Aug. 23, the amount donated to National ALS reached a total or more than $62 million.

UPDATE: As of Friday, Aug. 22, the amount donated to National ALS reached a total of $53.3 million.

UPDATE: As of Wednesday, Aug. 20, the amount raised was Mass. ALS, $575,637.93; National ALS, $31,592,590.