The ice bucket challenge inspiration, Anthony Senerchia, died on Saturday after fighting ALS for 14 years, Time magazine reported.
The 46-year-old was instrumental in popularizing the ALS ice bucket challenge, which went viral in 2014 and helped raise over $200 million for the ALS Association, a nonprofit organization fighting Lou Gehrig's disease.
"Anthony will be remembered as a fireball who tried everything in life," his obituary read. "He was family oriented, generous and always ready to lend a helping hand. He was a great husband, a proud father, a loving son and a great brother. He will be missed by everyone who knew him."
Anthony Senerchia was diagnosed with ALS in 2003, not long after marrying Jeanette Hane, and outlived his doctor's expectations by 10 years, the obituary said, noting that his fighting spirit was due to his love for his daughter, Taya Senerchia.
"It's a difficult disease and tough when you're losing," Jeanette Senerchia said, according to Journal News Media Group. "Your body is failing you. But he was a fighter… He was our light. He made our life better."
Commenting on the ice bucket challenge, Jeanette Senerchia said she believed her cousin, Chris Kennedy, was one of the first to participate in the name of ALS.
He recorded a video of it and sent it to her as a challenge.
"He sent it to me as a joke and then it turned into something extraordinary," she said, according to the Journal News Media Group.
Kennedy said per The New York Daily News that the concept that started out as a small gesture to "put a smile on Anthony's face and bring some awareness to this terrible disease has turned into a national phenomenon," adding that "it is something we never could have dreamed of."
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