About 40,000 crabs found their way into the stomachs of more than 2,500 people at the Annapolis Rotary Club's 67th annual Crab Feast Friday night.
"My favorite thing is just seeing the enjoyment and satisfaction people get each year," said feast Chairman Dave Cordle. "We use this as our main fundraiser to give back to the city. We try to give to as many area charities as we can."
Cordle said he hopes the event raised between $40,000 and $70,000 this year to give to places like the Lighthouse shelter and Habitat for Humanity. He said he won't know for several weeks until all the checks come in.
The 2011 feast brought in more than $70,000, but about 47 percent of that came from a single donation made in memory of Annapolis Rotary Club member Phil Richebourg.
The all-you-can-eat and drink feast was held at the , and volunteers served up 130 gallons of crab soup and 3,400 ears of corn in addition to the crabs.
Pastor Henry Green helped distribute some of the 60 kegs worth of beer that flowed from Budweiser trucks during the three-hour feast.
"A little over 10 years ago when I first joined Rotary, they thought it would be cute to have a Baptist minister serving beer," Green said. "They've had me on the beer truck every year since."
Bea Carson, Rotary's president elect, brought 30 members of her family from as far away as Florida and New York for a crab feast family reunion.
"Some family from St. Augustine wanted to come up for Crab Feast, and I decided to see who else I could round up," Carson said. "It just snowballed into a complete family reunion."
Carson's family weren't the only out of towners. Mike Sykes came from Pennsylvania.
"We come down every year, and we plan on coming next year," Sykes said. "There's about 18 to 20 of us that meet every year in the parking lot around 3:15 p.m. to hand out crab necklaces and leis."
One of those leis landed on first time Crab Feast goer Christina Molina who said, "We are already putting in a work request for next year."
