BATON ROUGE — East Baton Rouge Schools held its annual Back to School Bash on Saturday with less than a week left until students return to classes.

Saturday's event brought over 10,000 people to the Raising Canes River Center. As new Superintendent Lamont Cole puts it, Baton Rouge knows how to party for a good cause.

"The best parties are the parties with a purpose and the purpose today is to help prepare our students to go back to school this week. So we're excited and happy to be here," Cole said.

The last few months for  EBR Schools were very hectic, with the challenge of choosing a permanent superintendent getting to the point where teachers threatened not to show up for the first day of school.

However, Saturday was different. There was a sense of pure energy and excitement from the community for the upcoming school year.

"Everybody is excited about learning and so when everyone is excited about learning, it means that the energy in our schools and in our classrooms is gonna be the type of energy that we need to make sure are kids learn at high levels," Cole said.

Parents and students were able to pick up supplies for the upcoming school year at the event. Many of the supplies came from Stuff the Bus, a donation event WBRZ hosted with East Baton Rouge Schools. Over four school buses were filled with more than $25,000 worth of school supplies.

"Definitely WBRZ helped us with the Stuff the Bus campaign, super grateful to you guys... I was just literally talking to Mayor Broome, just trying to see how we can get the business community engaged next year because I really believe that the event is gonna continue to grow," event organizer Taneisha Flowers said.

The goal of the bash was to create an educational and fun activity for the whole family. Parents got to hear important info from schools about the upcoming year, while the kids got to enjoy bungy jumping, video games or rock climbing.

With the start of school right around the corner, Cole has one hope for the entire district this year.

"One hope I have is that every single day, students are able to go to school in a safe environment. We ought to have the safest schools in the nation," Cole said.