Roland Rodriguez, Public Relations Coordinator for the Aransas Pass Chamber of Commerce, said that without volunteers, there would be no festival.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Thousands of visitors poured into Aransas Pass last weekend for the 77th annual Shrimporee Festival, a three-day celebration of seafood, live music, a parade, and family fun honoring the area’s shrimping heritage.

RELATED: ‘Hay-Mazing’ Adventure returns to South Texas Botanical Gardens this fall

While shrimp may seem like the star of the show, organizers say the real spotlight belongs to the more than 800 volunteers who make the event possible each year.

Cherisse Banks, one of those volunteers, said giving back is what keeps her returning.

“I’m all about community. I own two businesses. I volunteer and I do a lot of different things in the community,” Banks said. “To me, it’s all about being a part of it, making something better, you know, getting more people to be involved, especially in a small town.”

Banks, who owns an all-women’s fitness center and is the daughter of shrimpers, spent the weekend operating the festival’s main gate, welcoming an estimated 30,000 guests.

Roland Rodriguez, Public Relations Coordinator for the Aransas Pass Chamber of Commerce, said that without volunteers, there would be no festival.

“It’s the volunteers who are the lifeblood of the Shrimporee,” Rodriguez said. “They’re teachers, they’re doctors, they’re lawyers, they’re realtors, they own gyms. But everything they do is for their community.”

Across the festival grounds, volunteers worked long hours in every corner of the event. One of those is realtor Liz Dorris, who spent the weekend directing traffic and assisting vendors.

“I’m here all three days for 15 hours doing this, and I absolutely love it,” Dorris said. “I get to interact with the craft vendors. I help them. I love them very much. Most of these vendors have been coming here since I’ve been here.”

Nearby, real estate broker Lisa Barker — also the daughter of a shrimper — oversaw drink ticket sales. She said her years of experience have helped her build a reliable volunteer team.

“It’s a lot of fun and people don’t realize what goes on behind the scenes,” Barker said. “We have to find those volunteers. I’m lucky having been doing this for so long that I’ve got reliable people that I’ve known that I call on every year, and when I call them, they don’t hesitate to step up to the plate.”

Beyond the economic boost the festival brings, Banks said the Shrimporee is ultimately about unity and supporting one another.

“The shrimp comes from locals, so you’re supporting local there,” Banks said. “We have our band boosters, we have our nonprofits, churches, different things like that here. We have some of our food trucks, they’re local. Just trying to bring all that together to support as a whole— that’s pretty much what the festival is about.”