One day you find you’re having trouble tying your shoes and buttoning your shirt. After many months, numerous doctor visits, and a battery of tests, you’re told you have ALS. An ALS diagnosis is unbelievably crushing. The impact is impossible to fully appreciate until it hits you or someone you know. The disease is a monster, and it only has one direction. You progress until you can no longer eat, speak, walk, or breathe. Research into finding a cure is vital. That’s why I run, bike, and swim.

The ALS Association teamed up with a group of expert data analysts at Mastercard who spent more than 24 consecutive hours to help our national office and chapters gather insights into improving operations and strategies to advance our mission to find a cure for ALS.

“Life is full of challenges,” said Gene Connolly. “We get little say in what happens to us, but everything to say in how we deal with it. In fact, our response will define us.”

Frustrated with the limited availability of assistive technology devices for his mother, who was diagnosed with ALS, Dexter Ang quit his finance job, partnered with David Cipoletta, an underwater robotic engineer, and set to work developing technologies that could universally, massively, and quickly improve the quality of life for people living with ALS.

Before the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, The ALS Association allocated $6 million annually to funding ALS research. After the ALS IBC, the Association has budgeted about $18 million per year to research and has so far committed $84 million to ALS research. From this investment, there has been massive payoff in a significant increase in ALS gene discoveries.

Erin Brady Worsham, an award-winning artist based in Nashville who has lived with ALS for more than 24 years, takes her philosophy about life from golf.

Bad things happen to good people every day. That’s just the nature of life. But it doesn’t mean we stop living and loving. My ALS story officially started on a warm fall afternoon in September 2001. I had been having difficulties with speaking and swallowing for several months. After more than two months of seeing about a dozen different medical professionals, and having more tests than one can imagine, I sat in the small examination room of a local neurologist.

Dawn & Nash are a husband and wife duo called “Dawn Loves Nash.” They’re also artists who are living and sharing their “hippie gypsy pop” music in and around Nashville, Tenn. Influenced by Sting, John Denver, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Willie Nelson, and Patsy Cline, Dawn Loves Nash aspires to help others through music.

Margot Vaughan has been fighting ALS for more than two years. But she hasn’t been fighting alone. “My family is totally devoted to me,” Margot said. “They keep me going and I’m lucky and grateful to have such an amazing family by my side.”

“If I have to be the face of ALS,” Donna Boring said, “it’s not a bad face to have.” Donna was diagnosed with ALS in 2008, at the age of 37. She is one of the heroes in The ALS Association’s new public service announcement (PSA) campaign showing “The Reality of ALS.”

My name’s Aaron, but my friends call me “Bankz.” I’m a 39-year-old husband to Abbie and father to seven-month-old Lincoln. It was a real shock when I received my ALS diagnosis less than six months ago. But now that I’ve had some time to let things sink in, it’s time to make some noise.

Jason Walker believes his greatest accomplishments have come since his diagnosis with ALS – specifically, being a husband and a father. He met his wife, Annie, three years into his ALS diagnosis and they started dating a year later. They were married in 2014.

Thirty-seven-year-old Melissa is a mother to Anthony (14) and Lauren (9). She’s been living with ALS for two years. “I can’t say that I parent any different [since being diagnosed with ALS],” Melissa said. “As a parent, you have to pick and choose your battles and I’ve never been one to sweat the small stuff. But I can see how much my diagnosis has made my children grow and mature.”

David is originally from Rockwall, Texas, and is now on what he calls “an extended stay in New Haven, Connecticut.” He has lived with ALS for more than 15 years.

This is the first profile in that series, and it’s written in the volunteer’s own words. Michelle Reynolds Gray has been volunteering to help people with ALS in the St. Louis, Mo., area for more than six years. I met my first person with ALS in early 2012, a 59-year-old man named John. When we met, he was “locked in” and couldn’t respond to me in any way except with tears.

Young people across the country are embodying the “Raise Your Voice” spirit for ALS Awareness Month through the Iced Tea Challenge to support The ALS Association. Yesterday, Iced Tea Challenge campaign organizer Rebecca Wetzel appeared on the “TODAY” show to discuss how youth can be more involved in philanthropy and raising awareness for ALS.

People living with ALS eventually lose the ability to speak. That means that preserving channels of communication is an important component of enhancing quality of life. The ALS Association - DC/MD/VA Chapter took this to heart when they initiated The Esther Lerner Brenner ALS Assistive Technology Lab in Maryland, which is designed to help people living with ALS communicate effectively for as long as possible.

Our beloved daughter, Carmen Schentrup, was taken from us on February 14, one of 17 victims of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Her life was cut too short. For the last month, we have tried to make sense of the senseless, and we have grieved with the other families.

The ALS Association mourns the loss of Dr. Stephen Hawking and commemorates his life and legacy. Hawking, a renowned physicist and best-selling author who famously studied black holes and whose life was depicted in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything, was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, in 1963. The average life expectancy of a person living with ALS is approximately two to five years after diagnosis and only 10 percent of people survive for more than 10 years.

I woke up this morning to the terrible news that Stephen Hawking died. While I never met the man, and didn’t really understand all he was saying about black holes, I learned a lot from him about what is possible for people with ALS.