Hundreds of Santa Clarita teens gathered on Sunday, Oct. 17, to join actor-influencer Eric Artell in kicking off the “ASMD Baby Food Challenge,” a social media challenge created to raise awareness for local toddler Damian Markham and Wylder Nation Foundation.

Attendees cheered in the background as Artell guzzled a jar of turkey baby food for his four million TikTok followers, before taking the challenge themselves.

“It’s amazing, the power of positivity. And you can have that power on social media,” Artell said to the youth during a prepared address that evening. “You can be powerful in what you do, one little piece of content at a time…You can spread joy, and you can spread goodness.”

A Los Angeles-based actor, content creator, host and voiceover artist, Artell was inspired to take part in the ASMD Baby Food Challenge after hearing about two-year-old Damian Markham’s fight to survive ASMD Type A, a fatal genetic disorder described as “baby Alzheimer’s.” In just six months, Damian’s GoFundMe campaign has raised over 660,000 dollars for Wylder Nation Foundation, the nonprofit researching a treatment for ASMD Type A.

“There’s hope for Damian…and there’s hope for all other children who have this, [if] that treatment can be brought to market fast enough,” Artell said to the youth, before encouraging them to use their social media platforms to raise awareness for the cause. “We can do some good tonight.”

The challenge—to eat a jar of baby food in under five seconds—is modeled after the Ice Bucket Challenge, which generated 24 million videos and raised over 220 million dollars to fight ALS in 2014. Teens donated baby food prior to the event, and spent over an hour cheering on those who took the challenge.

“Seeing all these teenagers so excited to do this challenge and be part of this push to spread was honestly emotional and meant the world to me,” said Brittany Markham, who was in attendance with Damian and her husband Brock that evening. “The entire community of Santa Clarita has been so incredibly supportive of our family on our mission to save our son’s life and has given us so much hope. We couldn’t be more grateful.”

Additional community efforts to support the Markham family and Wylder Nation Foundation include a Fit4Mom’s charity 1K on Saturday, Oct. 23, and a community bake sale on Sunday, Oct. 24.