Butler County has an opportunity to raise awareness as well as money to find a cure for a deadly disease called Lupus.

The community is invited to the Butler County Fair Grounds to participate in activities, a horse show, car show, talent show and a dance party all in the benefit for finding a cure for Lupus.

The gates will open at 8 a.m. and tickets will be $10 for 10 years or older, $5 for 10 and under and free for four years and younger.

Carolyn Hallford, one of the planners of the event, knows firsthand how Lupus can affect someone.

“There’s so little known about it,” Hallford said. “It’s almost killed me twice and almost put me in the wheelchair if I had listened to doctors. It’s an awareness thing and it’s to raise money for the research department to find out what causes your immune system to do this and how to stop it so it doesn’t claim the lives of other people.”

The money will be donated for research at the Lupus Foundation of American.

The event will include pony rides, facing painting, door prizes, a petting zoo, bouncy houses and much more.

The horse show will be at 12 p.m., which will include feed walks and cakewalks and will have a $6 entry fee. This is not a state-sanctioned horse show. The car show will be at 4 p.m. where the crowd will judge three different categories of cars. To enter a car, it will be $5.

The talent show will begin at 6 p.m. with a $25 entrance fee. The first place winner will receive $100, second, $75 and third, $50. After that there will be a DJ dance party where half of the floor will be for dancing and the other half will be set up with tables and chairs for eating.

Hallford said there are three different types of Lupus and she has Systemic Lupus.

“It’s been a ride to say the least,” Hallford said. “It’s an auto immune disease so your own immune system is designed to fight that off so you don’t get that cold. My immune system can’t determine between the good stuff and bad stuff, so it could attack kidneys, organs, lungs, ect.”

For Hallford, she said she probably knows there won’t be a cure for her, but she’s hoping there will be a cure for her children who are already showing signs of carrying the disease.

“I want people to find your fight,” Hallford said. “I have a nine year old, and he wasn’t planned but he wasn’t supposed to make it, but it gives him an 85 percent chance of having it. I have a 22 year old that’s showing signs of it. I want a cure for this. We’re going to do this every year until my last breath. If I can just give one person that attitude to fight before I have to see my kids go through this, that’s my battle now.”