Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY.169 | feat. Laurel Flanagan from The Crawfish Festival

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Operation Northern Comfort CEO Laurel Flanagan on the Syracuse Crawfish Festival Fundraiser On Good News York, host Noah interviews Laurel Flanagan, CEO of Operation Northern Comfort, about the organization’s origins after Hurricane Katrina, its continued disaster-response trips, and its current work in Central New York providing free ramps and lifts to residents who otherwise can’t safely leave their homes. Laurel previews the 19th annual Syracuse Crawfish Festival, held the first Saturday in May (May 2) in Clinton Square from 11–7, the group’s major fundraiser, featuring a family zone with books and literacy activities, local bands on a main stage plus a quieter second stage, Cajun and local foods (including crawfish, jambalaya, gumbo, beignets), crafters, and a mascot dance-off judged in part by the mayor. She shares her path from volunteering to becoming CEO after founder Norm’s passing, and invites viewers to volunteer or donate at operationnc.org, noting upcoming bookshelf builds and frequent ramp requests. 00:00 Perspective And Smiles 00:19 Meet Laurel Flanagan 00:31 Crawfish Festival Details 01:04 Origins After Katrina 02:42 Ramps Lifts And Mission 04:38 Family Zone And Literacy 05:51 Music Stages And Food 08:50 Crowds Weather And Growth 11:44 Improving The Experience 13:53 Clinton Square Home Base 14:38 City Support And Wrap 14:50 Mascot Dance Off 15:50 Meet the Mascots 16:52 Founder Norm’s Impact 18:22 Laurel Joins the Cause 20:59 Documenting Katrina Work 22:08 Leading After Loss 23:13 Service Trips and Local Help 25:43 How to Volunteer Next 27:02 Show Wrap and Sponsors

The perspective that, you know, your problems are just maybe kind of minor compared to to what those people were going through at the time. And it continues. Our project team says regularly that their paycheck is in smiles. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Good News York. My name is Noah. Today I am with Laurel. Laurel, welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Can you introduce yourself? Yeah, my name is Laurel Flanagan. and I'm the CEO of Operation Northern Comfort. Fantastic. And I hear that you guys have an event coming up.

Can you tell us about the event? We do. We have our major fundraisers coming up a week from Saturday. So it's May 2nd. It's always the first Saturday in May. And it's going to be down in Clinton Square, the Syracuse Crawfish Festival, 19th annual. Wow, 19 years. Yes.

My goodness. Yeah. Cool. So at the top here, I want to learn about two things. First, I want to learn about what your organization does and the history of that. And then I want you to sell us on why we should come to this crawfish festival because it sounds really cool. Yeah, absolutely. So our organization was started after Hurricane Katrina.

Our original founder, Norm Andujaski, had gone to Tulane University. And when Hurricane Katrina happened back in 2005, he called his friends down there and he wanted to do more than just write a check. He said, how can we help you? And at that point, they were just like, we have no idea, we have nothing, we don't know what to do. So he waited a month and he called back and he said, I went through my Rolodex, I'm bringing a dozen people from Central New York down. We're going to help you start cleaning up. Is that okay? And they were like, please, please come help us. So, you know, time goes on. Norm kept going down. People from Central New York kept going down. thousands of volunteers from different colleges around central New York and and just local folks

going down helping clean up and rebuild in New Orleans. So, you know, time has a way of moving on. And after 10 years, you know, there were other disasters and other places that need attention. But the volunteers in Central New York are special. And they still want to to give back in some way. So Operation Northern Comfort was born. You know, Southern Comfort developed into Operation Northern Comfort. And we started doing things for people that didn't have the means to do it for themselves. We do everything we can to say yes. One of the main things we do is put in ramps and lifts for folks that don't have the means to afford that. A lot of times you think there's got to be some government agency that takes care of this for people, but it's just not true.

People either have a loved one that is inside for multiple years and not able to come out because they don't have mobility, or they're at some short-term rehab, and they can't come home because they don't have a safe exit from their home. So that's where we come in. They contact us at no charge to them. We will put it in a ramp or a lift. There's some things that go into that. You know, sometimes if they don't owe the home or we can't pull a permit from their local codes office or there's just not enough room on the property, we're not able to help them with that.

But we do everything that we can to say yes. You know, we rely on donations and we rely on the Crawfish Festival. That's our major fundraiser. So that's coming up this Saturday, a week from Saturday, in Clinton Square from 11 to 7. It's the first festival of the season, so I feel like all the other festivals look to see how it goes for us, and then they can adjust accordingly. But the special thing about being the first festival of the season is that, you know, we live in Central New York, and we've had a tough winter, and people come out.

It's like coming out of hibernation. and they're ready to go down to Clinton Square, have a party, have a good time, and we are happy to accommodate. Wonderful. Wonderful. So, sounds great. So first Saturday in May and they're showing up, they're arriving to the Crawfish Festival. What can you expect to see?

What can you expect to smell? What do you expect to taste? I want to know. What's it going to be like? So there's so much going on. We're a very family-friendly festival, and so we have a whole family zone. So you should come down, bring the kids. There's going to be face painting and a balloon guy.

There's going to be new games this year. There's going to be crafts. And we have a special literacy corner, Cisco's Literacy Corner. So we have a crawfish mascot. His name is Cisco. Oh, cool. Okay. So he's got his own literacy corner in the family zone.

And Books Van Gogh, which is another local nonprofit we partner with. They're giving away free books to kids. and you can come down and pick up some free books for the kids. And it's just another way for us to let kids know how important education and literacy is to us. We participate in another program called bookshelves for kids where we make and deliver bookshelves to different literacy events in the city, around the city, where kids can get a bookshelf. It's their own personal bookshelf that they can put. their books on and hopefully they will understand that, you know, reading is important and their education is important. So that will all be in the family zone. We have our main stage,

which has the great Syracuse local bands that everybody loves to come out and see and dance and sing along. So we start with the Unity Street Band, which is going to be another nonprofit organization that puts together a band. They parade around the festival just like you would see New Orleans so you can dance along behind them and get some beads and hear some great jazz music. And then we have the confabulators who have been with us all 19 years. They're going to play some southern jazzy New Orleans type music. And then we move into some really special bands that are really favorites and bring a lot of groupies along, but that's great.

We have brass ink, the barn dogs, and the rip chords. Cool. So they're all on the main stage. It's going on all day right up until 7 o'clock. Wow. As far as food goes, a lot of people are like, well, I don't know how to eat the crawfish, but we have people in the boil area that will teach you how to eat the crawfish. Cool.

So you should come down and give it a try. If you don't think you like the crawfish, then there's shrimp. We have crawfish mac and cheese. We have pole pork sandwiches. Then we have some local favorites that maybe haven't had in a while, like the Hoffman hot dogs and hamburgers and Gianelli sausage and all that good stuff. We have a Cajun Cafe. The chef there is actually trained in the Louisiana Culinary Institute. So his jambalaya and gumbo are authentic.

He makes this bread pudding and catfish po-boys. Sounds good. So, you know, you're going to feel like you're in New Orleans. Then we have another tent. It's Benets. So it's like a, for those people who might not know, it's, you know, famous in the quarter. And it's like a fried French donut covered in powdered sugar. So all of those will be going on.

But we also have some local food trucks there. The Bold Coast Lobster will be making their seasonal debut. we'll have some other great food trucks there for people who want something a little different than the New Orleans. So there's something for everybody. There's over 50 crafters and people like that there that you can do some Mother's Day shopping and get some unique items. And we have a second stage, if you want to quiet things down a little bit, where some young, new local talent will be trying out some live performance and doing some acoustic in a separate time.

Oh, wonderful. Wow. I mean, this sounds huge. It sounds massive. What is the normal turnout? Yeah, so we get, you know, we're so weather dependent. This time of May can be hit or a mess. But we get between 6,000 and 9,000 people depending on the weather.

And it's all different types. We really pride ourselves on being culturally diverse. So we get people from all walks of life that come down from all over from as far away as like Western New York and Watertown. And so we've really developed a reputation as a fun place to be even in the rain, which we got poured on last year. But fortunately, it gave us a couple hours where the rain stopped. We sold out of crawfish and people just had a fantastic time even in the rain. But this year it's not going to rain. Not at all.

No. No, yeah. Gosh, of course not. It's definitely not going to run. I'm putting it out there. It's going to be beautiful. I love that. Yeah, good positive vibes, you know, affirm it in the universe.

I think that's great. Wonderful. Wow, 6 to 9,000 people. That must be, I mean, was that overwhelming? I mean, when did this start? And, like, I mean, you said you've been going for about 19 years. 19 years? Yeah. It's funny because when we started, we started in Hanover Square, which is much smaller than Clinton Square. And quite honestly, we didn't really know what we were doing. And the line to get the crawfish was a couple hours. But would you believe people waited in that line? It's no longer like that. We definitely know what we're doing at this point. And, you know, the years have gone on. And we just kept. Every year we kept adding something and adding something until we are now the size that we are.

We take over the entire Clinton Square, you know, the streets around Clinton Square are shut down. And, you know, it's just, oh, it's such a good vibe and so much fun. And, you know, people are just so happy to be outside and celebrating and eating good food and, you know, running into their neighbors. or whatever. And I think that it's extra special because it's all volunteers. Everybody there is just doing the side of goodness of their heart. And you know that every soda you buy and every meal that you purchase, that the proceeds are going back to help your neighbors here in central New York.

And that's just good. We could use some good news. So that makes us feel great. That is so wonderful. I mean, that, that, this sounds awesome. It sounds awesome. feel bad that I've never been. I want to go really bad. I've got to come. I hope I'm there. I will try to make it out. That sounds really awesome. And I, I don't know, 19 years,

it sounds like you've learned every single year. And so what, can you tell us about some of those things that you've learned and like how people who might attend to this, right, who might come to this, they might experience some of those learnings, right? Like, how have you made the guest experience better over the years? Yeah. So we were really fortunate in the, um, We had dedicated individuals who led the festival for a lot of years. This year we have a new festival chair, and she's doing an incredible job. And she just put up her hand and stepped up in greed to do this great big, giant job. And I have to say, there's two things out of that.

The one is that people really do step up. They want to participate in something positive and good, and they step up and take on these huge responsibilities, and it's just inspiring. And then you have the people that just keep doing it year after year after year after year. Like, people have done this for 19 years, are, you know, still doing it with us. We learned a lot about how to boil crawfish. Sure. Be more efficient.

We improved our equipment. We learned how to, you know, make it work better for us. So those lines are a thing of the past. It's funny because, you know, we added credit card terminals probably five or six years ago, and that was a big improvement because people just don't really pay and cash that much anymore. So that was really helpful for folks. We learned that people wanted a little bit of quiet sometimes a place to step away and just kind of eat their crawfish in peace. So we added the second stage, which was a little quieter than the – and that,

then you have the people that just want to be right in front of the stage all day long. Sure, right, yeah. And so, you know, we tweaked our bands to be ones that were really popular, that people really enjoyed. Wonderful. And we just stayed consistent. There's a lot of things going on that weekend, but people have come to know that the Crawfish Festival is the first Saturday in May. Boom, that's it. So, and also Clinton Square became our home.

We moved around a little bit. We've done a few festivals in the Inner Harbor. We had to do a festival out of the state fair one year. But being in the center of everything, and quite honestly, Clinton Square is beautiful. You look around at those old buildings, and it's just, it showcases everything that's beautiful about Syracuse, which I think it is a beautiful, wonderful community, and I love being a part of it. Wonderful. Oh, that sounds so cool. It sounds like you really know what you're doing.

like you have the right people in place. It sounds like you've got the right, you know, you've got, you've got the entertainment, you've got the music, you've got the food, you've got the staff to coordinate everything. That's wonderful. And it sounds like the city is also supporting you and like helpful in that too as well. The city is very, very supportive. Mayor Owens is a good friend of ours. She has judged the craft, well, so I should tell you about the mascot dance off. Oh, that's a lot of fun. Yeah, please do. We have mascots from different organizations around Central New York come down, and they go into a dance competition. Wow.

And it's judged up to a point, and then the crowd picks their favorite out of the top three. That mascot wins $200 towards the charity of their choice. Wow. So it's just fun. The crowd gets going. They get to participate. And Mayor Owens has been our judge a couple times. She's very, very gracious.

and I think she enjoys it as well. Wonderful. So it's just nice to, you know, and we work in the city. So having friends that help us with what we do and understand what our mission is, is just, it's a beautiful thing. That's awesome. It makes me really wish that we had a mascot here

so that I could participate in the mascot competition. Maybe next time I'll dress up as a big microphone. Next year, next year. Be cool. That's wonderful. Any mascots that I'll know of that are participating in the competition? So we always get the mascots from Syracuse Parks and the Syracuse Fire Department. And I'm trying to think, oh, from Bryant and Stratton, the Bobcat and from OCC Blaze, they'll all be there.

Tully's Turtle. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. And, well, we have our own mascots. And I have to tell you, we have this little crawfish and she dances and she steals the show. So it's almost not. not fair, but, you know, at the end of the day, all the money goes to charity. So that's good. Oh, that's wonderful. That sounds like so much fun. Oh, my gosh. Wow.

Oh, and there's a nice big trophy, too. Well, really? Yeah, for the, for the, that's the real prize, I think, for those mascots is that trophy. That's awesome. Cool. You also mentioned that, so you mentioned, tell me about you and your story, right? So your story and your involvement with this organization as well, because I think it seemed personal. It seemed like, yeah. So anybody who, encountered our founder Norm And Jujuski can't help but be affected by him. And to have this vision and to take people and just not take no or worry about the red tape and just, you know, just go and start helping. It's just inspirational.

And across the board, people who went to New Orleans to help clean up will say that they got more out of it. They went down thinking that they were going to help, and they got more out of it than they put into it. Just the experience of being there during people's worst hours and doing some small thing and the gratitude that you receive back. And just the perspective that your problems are just maybe kind of minor compared to what those people were going through at the time.

And it continues. Our project team says regularly that their paycheck is in smiles. When you see somebody come out of their house that has been trapped inside and to be given their independence of being able to roll themselves out of the house and down a ramp and the smile that they have on their face after that, it's just, it's life-altering and it's the fuel that keeps us going. For me personally, my husband worked for suburban propane, which is one of our long-time supporters. They provide the propane for the festival, which we use a lot to boil the crockfish.

So he was just interested really in kind of the cooking aspect of it. It's his passion. And so he asked one of the organizers, could he come down and see how they were cooking the crawfish and all of that? And so he did, and I just went around, and I was looking, and I was like, oh, this is interesting. And at first, I didn't even realize that it was for, it was a fundraiser for a nonprofit. So I was like, oh, this is, you know, I don't know, probably 15 years ago. And I thought, well, that was interesting. And the next year, he actually participated as one of the boilers.

and I thought, oh, I still was in the mindset that this is interesting. But then the next year he said, Laurel, they need help. Would you volunteer? And I just kind of like an organizing type of a person. So I did. And the next thing I know, I'm like running the order taking in the, where they did the crawfish boil tent. So I met the folks from Louisiana.

They were all there helping us and the nicest people. And they said, Laurel, you need to come down to our festival. And I said, why not? So I went down to New Orleans. So you got to go. Yeah, no, I want to. Really bad. The whole travel experience.

It was so much fun. Oh, cool. So. Did you fly down or do you drive? Do you do the drive? We flew down. We do have some folks that drive down. We flew.

They drive. That's like 25 hours. What is it? Yeah. They break it up, which is how we used to do our service trips. We would stop in Tennessee or Virginia or someplace. We would have a church that would give us a place to sleep. And our volunteers slept on cots overnight.

Oh, my God. It's not a comfortable experience. Oh, my God. But they love it. And they were going. And these people are taking, like, personal time from their jobs to do this, too. Wow. It's like a huge commitment.

But people are just amazing. Yeah. So. And that was back when you were helping at the beginning of the. Yeah, specifically going down to New Orleans. Like 50 of our trips were to New Orleans. Wow. So on the way back, Norm was flying.

It's funny you said about flying because Norm was flying too, and we're sitting there. And next thing Norm is sitting next to me, and I'm like, hey, Norm, how are you? And he's like, I have a project for you, which is usually how things started with Norm. And I said, oh, yeah, what's that? He said it's been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina, and I feel like we need to document what we've done. I said, okay, and he goes, I want you to do it. And I was like, okay. So I had the privilege of interviewing, starting to interview all of the volunteers and some of the recipients of our help in New Orleans.

And, you know, then I worked with a student from SU to make it into doctorate. documentary. Oh, cool. So if you go on our website, you can see the result of that. Wonderful. But things don't stop there with Norm. You know, you finish a project and he sees your potential. Yeah. And he pushed you also to realize more and more potential. So the next thing I knew I was his co-chair. And then, so this is my fifth year. CEO and he came to me and he said, Laurel, I'm thinking of stepping down and I think that you would be a good person to be my successor. And that's basically what happened. And unfortunately, Norm got sick and he passed away. Oh, I'm so sorry. It was really hard. It still remains hard. And when you hear

at the festival, the phrase from the volunteers, it's a beautiful thing, well, that's Norm. That's something that he always said. And, you know, I just feel such an honor to fill his shoes. And I can't believe that it's been, you know, I've been doing this role for five years. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to do that. Yeah. So that's kind of how my personal journey is or was. and I got to go on a service trip, a cleanup service trip.

I was in Florida after Hurricane Ian. I feel like it was about 66 for us, number 66. And I actually got to go into people's home and experience that gratitude. And here I am, like, I'm pulling down sheetrock and cutting and throwing away and putting their stuff at the curb, and they're grateful for it. We had to do that because the black mold, you know. And this was like three or four months after the hurricane, and they had just been living in these pretty unsafe conditions

that we were just trying to make a little bit better. So, yeah, that was extremely rewarding for me. And we just had Trip 68, was last year. Right here locally, our neighbors over in Canistota had some pretty significant flooding. So we sent a team out there to a home to cut out the damage she rack and repair their entrance way. Wow. How wonderful. I mean, that is incredible. When I was in, when I was a teenager, my parents, we went on a missions trip to Appalachia and we did something very similar with a, with an organization down there. And it was, it was really nice. Like I,

it was my first, you know, knowledge about nonprofits. And, and I'm a, assuming it was very similar to what you're doing. You know, we built a ramp for a woman. And it was a very rewarding experience. Like, and it was, you know, I had never really, I was probably a liability at 16 and not really knowing what I'm doing. But like, you know, lifting things, moving things, helping the people who had contracting experience really is what you're doing. But, um, but it was, it was a really wonderful experience in it. And I was shocked. I was eye opening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she was very grateful. And I remember leaving that trip being like, wow, this is really cool. And it's not, it's not hard to, just by

trying, you can help someone else who really needs it. And there are people in this world that really need it. So that's amazing. Laurel, thank you so much for coming on the show. And, and your story is really cool. And this event sounds awesome. And you're a very impressive person. So thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate you having me. I take every opportunity that I can to talk about Operation Northern Comfort in the festival. Wonderful. And you love it. And you can tell. And it emanates off of you. That's a very. amazing. So I think that's great. Everybody there. Everybody involved is the same way. You could have talked to any of them. Wonderful. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you want to cover

before we close out here? You know, just that you can always go on our website, OperationNC.org, and there's opportunity to volunteer or to donate, either one. And please just come on down for the festival. Absolutely. As far as volunteer opportunities, are there things coming up in the near future that people, that you need people for? Yes. So our first, first desk build will be happening as soon as we finish the festival because we have our first event that we need to build and deliver 50, I'm sorry, not desks, bookshelves is the 7th of June. So we've kind of got a tight window to get those bookshelves built and delivered. And meanwhile, we are getting four to six requests for ramps a week.

Wow. So it's like spring is here and everybody needs it. So, yeah, we definitely have volunteer opportunities. What's that website one more time? OperationNc.org. OperationNc.org. Well, thank you very much. Guys, definitely make sure you come out to.

I'm going. I'm going to be there. I promise. I'm going. It sounds awesome, but I'm going to be there. And the OperationNC.org is where you can go to volunteer and learn more about the festival as well, yeah? Yep.

Beautiful. Laurel, thank you so much for coming on. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Good News York. My name is Noah Chrysler. Guys, this show is put on by ClickStream Studios. We are a content marketing agency here in Central New York. We just took over the new spaghetti warehouse location here. And we do full service content marketing.

If you need marketing help and you are in the Syracuse area, we will give you a free personalized marketing plan. I will sit down with you for about 45 minutes. I will learn everything I can about your business. And I will present you a free marketing plan. You can use that on your own or you can go with us. Totally up to you. And also this show is brought to you by Ads on the Go.

Get Ads on the Go.com. Thank you so much to our sponsor as on the go. And thank you guys for watching. We hope to see you next time. I'm Noah Chrysler. That's Janie Chpotee behind the camera. And this is Laurel. And she's awesome.

And if you're not at the Crawfish thing, there's something wrong with you because it's going to be dope. Goodbye.