A few days before East Baton Rouge Parish schools open their doors for another year, the district is inviting every family across the parish to stop in, look around, and pick up the tools that make a new school year feel less like a scramble and more like a fresh start. On Saturday, September 19, the East Baton Rouge Parish School System will host Falling into Resources, a free community resource fair running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Inspiration Center on Winbourne Avenue in North Baton Rouge. There is no ticket to buy, no registration to complete, and no capacity barrier. If you are an EBR Schools family, the door is open.
The idea behind the fair is simple, but the need it answers is considerable. The weeks before school starts are some of the most expensive and stressful of the year for families, particularly those navigating tight budgets and long work schedules. Where do you find affordable tutoring? Which afterschool programs actually have space? Who offers mentoring for a child who needs a steady adult presence? Falling into Resources answers those questions in one place, with one visit, by gathering a wide range of local organizations under one roof. Groups like Big Buddy, the Boys & Girls Club, before- and after-school providers, and tutoring services will all be there, ready to talk with parents about what they offer and how to get a child signed up.
'Preparing for a successful school year takes a strong partnership between our schools, families, and community,' said Marlon Cousin, the district's administrative director of community engagement. Cousin, whose role in the EBR Schools Office of Communications and Public Relations is devoted to exactly this kind of bridge-building, joined Councilwoman Twahna P. Harris in promoting the event in the days before it took place. Their joint appearance on WBRZ underscored the degree to which Falling into Resources is not just a school district function but a community-wide effort, one that unites elected leadership, the parish's educators, and the nonprofit network that supports children beyond the classroom.
The setting for the fair is as meaningful as the organization behind it. The Inspiration Center, located at Howell Community Park, is a brand-new 25,000-square-foot, multi-use facility created by the Louisiana Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Foundation, or LECJF. The building, which represents roughly $10 million in investment, is designed to serve the whole family, offering educational resources, recreational amenities, and community services in a neighborhood that has long needed them. The community surrounding Howell Park is one of the highest-poverty areas in Louisiana, with more than four in ten residents living at or below the national poverty level according to U.S. Economic Development Administration Census data. The Inspiration Center was conceived explicitly to fill voids in the lives of local youth, providing wrap-around services for children and families in a part of the parish that has historically been overlooked.
Howell Park itself is among the oldest and busiest parks in the BREC system, and its legacy runs deep in the neighborhood. For Lamar Davis, the retired Louisiana State Police Superintendent who chairs the Inspiration Center committee, the project is personal. Davis grew up in the area and benefitted from programs at Howell Park as a child raised by a single mother who worked demanding shifts. He has spoken openly about his own school years, when an undiagnosed astigmatism made reading difficult and led to struggles that followed him into disciplinary trouble. It wasn't until he joined the Army that he got glasses and realized the problem was never his ability, just his vision. That experience has shaped his conviction that the right support at the right moment can change everything for a child.
The facility's developer, Clay Young, first imagined a small building offering services for kids and families, then expanded the vision after touring similar centers in Atlanta and Minnesota. The result is the largest facility of its kind in Louisiana, featuring a basketball gym, a recording studio, laundry facilities, and after-school programming centered on academics, mentorship, and job readiness. Some programs come with a small cost, but Young has insisted they will remain affordable for the surrounding community. He acknowledged in an interview that the neighborhood faces real challenges, including crime and sex trafficking, but he has been emphatic that the area is also full of good people who want to live, work, and raise children in peace. The Inspiration Center, he has said, is about giving those families a fighting chance.
The choice to hold Falling into Resources at the Inspiration Center is hardly accidental. The facility, still young and finding its footing in the community, represents exactly the kind of partnership the resource fair aims to encourage. It is a space built by a law enforcement foundation, staffed by community organizations, and now hosting a school district event designed to connect families with resources before the school year begins. The intersection of those three institutions, coming together in a single morning, is a small but telling symbol of what community engagement can look like when it works.
Councilwoman Harris, who represents District 7 and has been an advocate for North Baton Rouge throughout her public life, brings a similar passion to the effort. Raised in Arnaudville, she attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, worked for nearly a decade as a legislative assistant to the previous District 7 councilman, and founded The Butterfly Society, a nonprofit born from her personal triumph as a survivor of domestic violence. Her path has been one of community engagement in the truest sense, and her presence alongside Cousin at the announcement of Falling into Resources signals the depth of coordination behind the fair. The district, the city, and the nonprofit sector are all rowing in the same direction, and the event is the visible product of that alignment.
For families who attend, the practical stakes are high. The fair is designed to help parents leave with names, numbers, and real connections, not just flyers. The organizations on hand offer the kinds of services that can shape a child's academic year: a mentoring relationship through Big Buddy, a safe and enriching afterschool slot at the Boys & Girls Club, or a tutoring program that can help a struggling reader catch up before the gap widens. Each of those resources takes time to find, often requires navigating waiting lists, and always demands knowing the right questions to ask. Falling into Resources compresses all of that into a three-hour window, and it does so in a building that itself stands as proof that this community is worth investing in.
The timing, too, matters. The fair arrives just as the new school year begins, a season when families are making decisions about how their children will spend the hours after the final bell. For working parents, the choice between a structured afterschool program and an empty house can be one of the most consequential decisions of the year. Events like this one make those decisions easier by putting the options in front of families and letting them talk directly to the people who run the programs. The free, open-to-all format removes the barriers that often keep the families who need these services most from accessing them.
In a parish the size of East Baton Rouge, with a school system serving tens of thousands of students, it would be easy for such an event to feel like a drop in the bucket. But the people behind Falling into Resources clearly believe otherwise. They have built an event around the notion that readiness for school is not just about backpacks and notebooks, though those matter, but about having a web of support around a child: a mentor who shows up, a program that offers structure, a tutor who can explain a hard concept in a new way. On Saturday morning at the Inspiration Center, that web will be laid out, table by table, for any family that wants to step into it. The doors open at ten, the event is free, and the invitation is to every family in EBR Schools.