May is ALS Awareness Month

Take Action for ALS Awareness!

Held annually in May, ALS Awareness Month is a terrific opportunity to share your commitment to ALS care and research with friends and colleagues. All month, we’ll be sharing ideas to help you make an impact and highlighting people doing amazing work to raise funds and awareness in their communities.

Can you commit to at least one action for ALS Awareness Month? Some of the options below will take less than a minute — and make a world of difference.

Start Here:

• Share a graphic or an ALS fact on social media. Below, we've posted materials that you can share to educate people about the disease. Please download and post one with a couple lines about why ALS is personal for you. We'll be posting more over the course of the month — choose any that resonate with you.
• Commit to volunteering for an event this year. Add your name to the volunteer list for an upcoming event, such as the ALS Walk for Life or the Chicago Marathon, or find a rewarding experience with a remote team working year-round like our Gratitude Group.
• Register an ALS Walk for Life team. Use ALS Awareness Month as an opportunity to recruit friends for your ALS Walk for Life team on Saturday, Sept. 23 at Soldier Field. By registering now, you'll be able to connect with other Walk teams over the summer — and you'll turbocharge your fundraising efforts.
• Hold a fundraiser — or start planning one. Whether it's cooking, running, golfing or just celebrating a birthday, our Fundraise Your Way program will help you use an occasion of any size to raise money to help people living with ALS, at any time of year.
• Make a donation — and talk about why you did it. Nothing speaks louder than the example you set. It's natural to be humble about your generosity, and you don't need to include the amount, but people should know that ALS care and research is a cause that's important to you.

ALS Graphics to Share

We'll be posting these on the Les Turner ALS Foundation's social media accounts, and you're welcome to share one of our posts. But you'll make a much bigger impact by posting one of these to your own account alongside a personal reflection about how the disease has affected you.

Click on each thumbnail for a larger version that you can download or save to your phone's camera roll and use on social media.

Week 1: About ALS

Use these graphics to educate people about the facts behind the disease.

Week 2: Spotlight on ALS Nurses and Caregivers

Use these graphics as a springboard to talk about a nurse or a caregiver who you're grateful for, or to share your understanding of the challenges they face.

Week 3: Taking Control of Your Care

Week 4: Spotlight on ALS Research and Progress

Week 5: Spotlight on Veterans and Your Support

ALS Facts to Share

Consider sharing facts about ALS in your social media to help people understand the impact of the disease. You could use one of these or find many more on our What is ALS? page.

• The average survival rate for someone affected by ALS is 2 to 5 years.
• More than 90% of people with ALS have no known family history of the disease.
• Researchers predict an individual's lifetime risk of acquiring ALS is about 1 in 300 by the age of 85.
• Each year, at the Foundation, we lose one-third of the people we directly serve to ALS.
• U.S. military veterans are twice as likely to develop ALS compared to non-veterans.

You Can Make a Difference

Time and again, people find that ALS is not actually a rare disease — it affects all of us. If you take just one of these actions for ALS Awareness Month, you'll discover bonds and shared experiences with friends and colleagues, and you'll help connect people living with ALS and their families with care and support that can make a huge difference for them.

Together, we can create a world free of ALS.

Special Thanks