Some of the biggest names in television, sports and film have now taken the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which gives people the option to donate money to the ALS Association or dump a bucket of ice water on themselves before nominating at least three more people to take the challenge. Several websites have been criticizing the campaign, but Jack Evans, a 78-year-old sufferer of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, is now saying that the challenge is more than just a gimmick.

Evans told the Vancouver Sun that the Ice Bucket Challenge does more than just entertain viewers and raise money for ALS research. The challenge also gives people a sense of what it feels like to suffer from the disease, which affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, progressively degenerates motor neurons, and can lead to paralysis.

“This disease bumps your nervous senses up 300 per cent,” says Jack Evans, who has been suffering from the disease for over two years. “It’s just like putting me in a big ice cube.”

Evans’ children, John and Colleen, hosted more than 30 of their friends, families and neighbors to participate in the challenge last week and donate to the cause. In one day, the Evans’ challenge event raised over $1,200, and a local company, Champions in Sports, said they will match that donation.

“A lot of people have been saying that it’s just showmanship being couched as philanthropist activities, and a lot of people are naysaying the whole thing that it’s just a bunch of hype and it doesn’t mean anything,” said Colleen. “But I actually see that differently because there hasn’t really been a whole lot of awareness about ALS. A lot of people have no idea what it really means. We’ve encountered an awful lot of doctors in this whole experience with my dad, and most of them have never had an ALS patient before. They don’t know a whole lot about it. His nurses are unfamiliar with what his symptoms would be like.”

Since the campaign started in early August, over $53 million has been raised towards ALS research.