Butler County residents will have two opportunities to help the American Heart Association improve heart health awareness and raise money in two Heart Walks on successive weekends.

Cranberry Township will host a walk on Oct. 1 at the Westinghouse Electric headquarters off Route 228 in the Cranberry Woods office park.

The Butler, Marshall and Warrendale Heart Walk will be on Oct. 8 at the main campus of Butler County Community College.

Registration for both will be at 9 a.m. the day of the event with opening ceremonies at 10 a.m., and the walk to follow.

The courses are 1.6 and 1.5 miles, respectively, and participants are encouraged to walk the course twice.

Organizer Barbara Roth described the walks as family events with family and friends and even pets walking.

There will be children’s activities including a balloon entertainer, kids’ zone activities and a fire truck at Cranberry.

Blood pressure and other health checks will be available before and after the walks for participants.

All the money raised goes for heart research.

“For every $1 raised, $4 comes back to the Pittsburgh region,” said Roth because of the region’s prominence in heart research.

The total fundraising goal for the two events is $110,000.

So far, about $95,000 has been raised, according to Roth.

This is the first year that two walks will be in the county since most counties only have one per year.

Organizers said turnout will determine whether the two walks will continue.

Roth said the Heart Walk was in Cranberry in 2003-04 before it moved to the Butler area.

But there had been such a strong interest, especially in the corporate community, that a second walk was added in Cranberry this year.

The 2011 Heart child spokesperson this year is Luke Ball of Cranberry, who is almost 7 and who was born with a congenital heart defect that required him to have heart transplant.

Luke will walk in the two events for the first time this year. In past years, he has ridden on his father’s shoulders or in a stroller.

The Ball family, who lived in Oregon, chose to move to Pittsburgh so Luke could receive treatment at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.

On Dec. 29, 2010, after six weeks of waiting, Luke received a major Christmas gift, a donor heart

Luke regularly returns to Children’s for checkups.

In a news release, the Ball family said, “We .... encourage everyone to consider giving back and to participate in one of Butler County Heart Walks this year.”

Ron Vodenichar, general manager and co-publisher of the Butler Eagle, is chairman of both events.

For information on how to participate, contact Roth at 724-453-1004 or e-mail her at barbara.roth@heart.org or visit the websites at www.heart.org/bmwwalk or www.heart.org/cranberrywalk.

This year, the American Heart Association estimates more than one million walkers will participate in 350 events nationwide, raising funds to save lives from heart disease and stroke.