CONNOQUENESSING — Two young women from Connoquenessing are continuing to raise awareness about the rare brain disease that affects their mother.

Kierston and Kierra Wood will have an Oct. 4 fundraiser at the Family Bowlaway Fun Center, 540 Fairground Hill Road in Butler Township.

Their mother, 44-year-old Melissa Wood, has suffered from Huntington's Disease for nearly nine years.

The disease, which affects about 30,000 people in the United States, is a degenerative brain disorder that causes the patient to lose control of his body and mind. It has no cure, and people usually start showing symptoms between 30 and 50.

Last year, Kierra, 17, and Kierston, 20, had a booth at the Butler Farm Show to raise money and awareness, collecting $3,000 for the Huntington's Disease Society of America.

At the farm show, Tricia Pritchard, marketing and events coordinator for Family Bowlaway, stopped by the booth. Later their father told Kierston and Kierra they needed some sort of fundraising event this year, because the dates of the farm show overlapped with the family's vacation.

So, the sisters pulled Pritchard's business card out and gave her a call.

Pritchard said she had heard about the Woods after reading about them in the Butler Eagle last year.

“I'm like, I have to meet these girls because I'm so impressed with what they are doing,” Pritchard said.

Pritchard found them at the farm show, participated in their fundraising and offered to help them host a fundraiser.

The event is called Strike Out HD, and it will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 4 at Family Bowlaway.

The Woods and Pritchard said they would like to stage a fundraiser next year, too.

Pritchard said the event already has attracted several sponsors, saying the Woods family has almost raised $3,000 this year before the event has even been held.

Since last year, the sisters have gone to a convention in Dallas to learn about the disease.

The convention was put on by the Huntington's Disease Society of America in late June. Kierra Wood said they met a lot people affected by the disease there.

“It's a very small community here in Butler. Sometimes it's hard not to feel alone because it is such a small community. So it was really nice to meet other people, not only at risk like my sister and I, but just affected by this disease,” she said.

The girls won an all-expense-paid scholarship to attend the conference.

Patients with the disease usually survive between 10 and 20 years beyond their diagnosis. The sisters said their mother, who has been at Sugar Creek Rest in Armstrong County since 2013, is getting worse.

“It's almost to the point where she's wheelchair-bound,” Kierra Wood said.

Kierston Wood said her mother participates in therapy at the nursing home, and they try to get her to take a few steps from time to time.

“We always get the call, 'Hey, I walked a couple hundred feet today,'” she said.

The disease is inherited, and both sisters have a 50 percent chance of contracting it. If neither of them has the disease, then they do not have any chance of passing it on.

“I think we've both kind of come to the conclusion that we both want to be tested,” Kierra Wood said. “It's just about when you are ready for that information.”

She noted that she is a senior at Butler High School and picking out colleges, while her sister is studying early childhood education at the Butler County Community College.

“We're just, neither of us, not in a place now to know that information,” she said.

But she said they intend on being tested in the future, especially when the question of marriage comes around.

“We don't want to put any children into the world that are at risk like we are,” she said.

Strike Out HD will include unlimited bowling, shows, two slices of pizza and unlimited soda. All proceeds go to the Huntington Disease Society of America.

To register, call 724-486-3044 or send e-mail to strikeouthdnow@gmail.com.