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OTTUMWA, IOWA -- Would you like to ride your motorcycle for dogs without homes?

Well, here’s your chance.

The 7th Annual Hogs for Dogs event, a motorcycle fundraising ride for Heartland Humane Society dogs, will kick off this weekend.

“The way the whole brain-child of Hogs for Dogs started was my husband was doing work at the house of one of the board members and we learned of the need that the shelter had for funds, and with the love of motorcycles and the love of dogs that we had, we came up with Hogs for Dogs,” said Tammie Hartley, event organizer.

The festivities will begin Friday night, at Ottumwa’s Courtside Bar and Grill, with a registration event.

“Anybody can participate,” said Hartley. “You don't even have to like motorcycles. You just have to like a good time, so come on down on Friday night. Everyone's welcome and then on Sunday, we've actually had people that ride motorcycles, drive cars, convertibles, whatever you want to take is fine with us. But, there's no pre-registration; you just come on down between 9:30 and 10:20 p.m. and register.”

The ride will include a progressive game of Scrabble.

“Most rides do poker-runs and you pick a card at every stop,” said Hartley. “Well, instead of poker, we make it more family-oriented and it's scrabble, and you choose a letter at every stop, and then when you get back to the Knights of Columbus, we find out who has the word with the most points and that is who wins the scrabble game.”

Hartley says the $20 registration fee will get you a t-shirt, a meal, a chance for cash prizes, a thank you-bag of prizes, and a wonderful ride. All proceeds go to the Heartland Humane Society.

“Heartland Humane is a no-kill shelter, and what that means is when a pet shows up at Heartland, it can be there for quite some time, and there's a lot of expense that goes into housing a pet at Heartland. You've got labor costs, you have vet bills, utilities, maintenance on the building.”

Hartley says the Heartland’s biggest need is monetary funds, but they can also use cleaning supplies and dog food.

For more information, visit www.hogs4dogs.com.