You may not think of eating crawfish in upstate New York, but you can find some this weekend at the Syracuse Crawfish Festival. It’s a fundraising event for Operation Northern Comfort, a nonprofit that helps with disaster relief.

“We’re neighbors helping neighbors," said Laurel Flanagan, the CEO of Operation Northern Comfort. "We’re really trying to bring a sense of community to Central New York.”

Operation Northern Comfort is a nonprofit organization in Syracuse. 

“One of the things we’re most known for is we build ramps for people with disabilities," said Joyce Reap, chairperson of the Syracuse Crawfish Festival.

The nonprofit is known for helping people in need. Its volunteers travel across the country, providing disaster relief to communities that need it.

"This started from traveling down to Louisiana to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina and Rita," Reap said. "And we were working in Saint Bernard Parish, and we became very connected with the people from the Knights of Columbus Hall."

Louisiana is known for a lot, one thing being a certain crustacean. 

"That is kind of where the whole crawfish idea came from," Flanagan explained. "So he decided after going to a crawfish festival down in New Orleans that we were going to have a crawfish festival here in Central New York."

The crawfish and the chefs are all from Louisiana.

“[It's] a party," Flanagan said. "So boil actually means, like, a party. People think it's just like the boiling water, but it's really like a whole party that's going on. So that's what we're having down here in Clinton Square tomorrow. We're having a party.”

The Syracuse Crawfish Festival is 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse. Admission is free.