A sixth grader is honoring his father who was diagnosed with ALS last year by challenging his middle school peers to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Connor Hadley learned this past summer that his father had been diagnosed with ALS. He has previously done the Ice Bucket Challenge and wanted to bring awareness to his school.

On Friday afternoon, several students at McLean 6th Grade Center  stayed after school to participate in the challenge with Connor. Each student was asked to bring a buck to donate and a bucket to participate in the challenge.

“I’m very proud of the people at my school for showing up,” he said.

The challenge was put on by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). Summer Jones, PTA member said, “Connor is a full-of-life kid, his personality is larger than life and we want to show that all his buddies are there for him and his father.”

The Hadley Family

Since his diagnosis in late 2014, Collin Hadley and his wife, Emily, decided the family would have nothing but great memories and experiences from that day forward.

Collin and Emily told their children, 12-year-old Connor and 8-year-old Maddie, this past summer when they were out of school. Since then Connor decided to step up and be the man of the house, Collin said.

Connor started in the area the family loves most which when Collin cooks steaks. That night Collin taught his son how to make steaks and Connor has cooked them since, Collin said.

The family had started a blog to bring awareness about ALS and share their story.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge began in August of 2014. There are four steps to the challenge:

People recorded themselves dumping ice buckets on their heads and posted the videos to social media. Participants tagged their friends and family members to accept the challenge, and donated to the ALS Association.

In it’s first year the challenge raised $115 million, most of which went toward research.

This year #EveryAugustUntilACure was added to the social media posts. Collin said that ALS is not incurable, it’s underfunded.