On June 12, 2011, from 11 to 5, The Leonardtown Lions Club held their major fundraiser of the year, The Crab Festival. Started over 26 years ago by Lion Jim Raley, the St. Mary’s Crab Festival was created to be family oriented event with music, shade, and good crabs. Now over the years, it draws people from not only all over Maryland, but from all over the country with participants coming from as far as California or Arizona to participate.
“This is not a scientific number, but we estimate that over half the people are from outside the county,” says Lion Kennedy Abell, who has been part of the Crab Festival since it began.
When walking into the gates of the St. Mary’s Fairgrounds, there is someone at the gate writing down zip codes, and the men at the ticket booth are ready to strike up conversations with anyone from outside the county to hear their story of how they heard about the Festival.
“This is why I always work the gate,” says Lion J. Harry Norris, the Mayor of Leonardtown. “We learn more here than anywhere else.”
At an entry price of $5 a person, and children under 11 free, an afternoon of family fun can be bought. This year, crabs were $18 for a half dozen, and $35 for a dozen. There were also crab races, various food vendors offering kettle corn, ice cream, barbecue, fries, and other treats, a classic car show put on by Southern Maryland Classic Cars, a petting zoo and horse rides, and music by Southbound and the Southern Maryland Sound Barbershop Chorus.
“We don’t do it all by ourselves,” says Abell, “The caterers, the car shows, they are all important to us.”
All proceeds of the Crab Festival go to charitable purposes such as Hospice, Free vision and hearing tests, and vision support.
This year for the first time there was a pre-Crab Festival party on Saturday evening at Leonardtown Wharf. The event was sponsored by the Leonardtown Lions Club for the benefit of Hospice of St. Mary’s. Attendees huddled under tents until the storm blew through and then enjoyed the rest of the evening with crabs and other food and drink and the music of Whiskers.
