This is the third year that Debbie Carpenter and her siblings have put together a motorcycle ride Poker Run to benefit autism and Down syndrome.

The run starts at 10 a.m. Saturday at Chaney’s Dairy Barn.

After the death of their mother in 2012, Carpenter said she needed to find a way to keep herself busy, and her family decided the run was the best way to go.

“I was at odds and needed to do something to fill a void,” Carpenter said. “My husband’s a rider and a lot of his friends are, and it’s something we enjoy doing.”

Registration will start at 9 a.m. and is $30 per bike. Participants will draw a card at the start of the run and travel about 60 miles through Franklin, Auburn and Russellville with three stops along the way to get water and pick up one additional card at each stop. They will pick up their fifth card back at Chaney’s and have the option to purchase two more cards at $5 a piece if they don’t like their current hand. The person with the best hand at the end of the run will win the grand prize of four tickets to the Grand Ole Opry.

Other prizes include hand-crafted hunting knives for the second and third place winners, and there is a raffle for a Ruger 10/22 rifle. Raffle tickets are one for $10 and three for $20. Last year the event had 21 bikes participate in the ride and raised more than $3,000, which the family split between Autism Speaks and The Buddy House for Down syndrome in Bowling Green, Carpenter said. 

Carpenter’s family chose those two causes because her great-niece Sydney Ebelhar, 8, has Down syndrome and her 6-year-old grandson Jackson Carpenter is on the autism spectrum. 

“Well, in all honesty, I would rather give to something that’s in the family than something that I don’t know about,” Carpenter’s younger sister Tressa Vincent said.

Vincent said the run is in honor of their mother because she loved her grandkids and it gave them something to take their minds off their mom not being there. 

“It’s just being with the family,” Vincent said. “We got to meet so many other people in the community that we never would have met if we didn’t start doing this.”

Participants can pre-register by emailing debbiecarpenter@kycourts.net and pay their $30 fee the day of the run. 

— For more information, call Debbie Carpenter at 270-791-4694.

— Follow faith/general assignments reporter Simone C. Payne on Twitter @_SimonePayne or visit bgdailynews.com.