A week from today, one of Washington’s signature events — the annual Summer Festival — gets underway for a two-day run.

Though the waterfront festival brings visitors and area residents to the waterfront for two days each year, planning for the event is nearly a yearlong process. As soon as one Summer Festival ends, the planning for the next one begins. While visitors and residents have two days to enjoy the festival, there are others who work throughout the year to make the two-day summer spectacular happen.

Those folks are associated with the Washington-Beaufort County Chamber of Commerce and the City of Washington. Someone has to find vendors and sign them up. Without the vendors, there would be no snow cones, homemade ice cream, Italian sausages, Polish sausages, lemonade and funnel cakes. Someone has to book the entertainment, such as The Embers featuring Craig Woolard, a Washington native who’s done fairly well in the music business, especially in the beach-music genre.

Someone has to find a talented person to design the Summer Festival T-shirts. Someone has to find a business to make the T-shirts. Someone has to decide where the food, souvenir and other vendors set up shop along Stewart Parkway.

Someone must arrange for the fireworks display. Someone must make sure the fireworks display will be as safe as possible. Someone has the task of making sure the vendors, amusement rides and numerous booth manned by nonprofit groups have power.

For 34 years, a dedicated cadre of people — which has changed over the years — has spent many hours planning Summer Festivals. Still, it’s been a relatively small number of people, many of them volunteers, whose work results in thousands of people visiting the city and spending money in the city. The best way to show your support for their efforts is to show up at the waterfront June 9-10.

Several someones need to show up at the festival to have fun. Let one of those someones be you.