On Monday, April 6th, fifth and sixth grade students from Eaton Elementary School hosted and presented Darius Songaila and Oleksiy Pecherov with research projects about them and their respective countries of origin, Lithuania and Ukraine.

"It was great. The kids were excited all week," said sixth grade teacher Mr. Bergfalk, who's class researched Songaila. "They were constantly asking ‘When is Darius Songaila coming, when are we going to get to do our presentation’. They had a great time doing the I-Movie. It was very independent. It has definitely been the highlight of this year for Darius Songaila and Oleksiy Pecherov to come here to visit us.”

The I-Movie presentation first focused on Songaila's life dating back to his days in Lithuania and ran up through his current statistics. The presentation was narrated by all the students in the class and featured information on everything from Lithuanian beaches to music and food.

"They did very good. You could see they learned a lot about Lithuania," said Songaila. "I want some Luthuanian food right now. Overall they did a really good job. I learned a little bit more about Pech’s country. It was a good time. It is always good to come out and put a smile on their face and sign some autographs. It was a really great afternoon."

The fifth graders at Eaton Elementary followed their elder classmates with a powerpoint presentation on Pecherov. The entire class took turns reading through the presentation and discussed the history of Ukraine as well as Oleksiy Pecherov's history as a basketball player.

"They did great. I was really surprised. They had a great presentation," said Pecherov. "Their knowledge of Lithuania and Ukraine was much more than I expected."

The event concluded a six week program designed to motivate the students to learn how to and practice using their research, writing and presentation skills before entering middle school next year.

"We were excited all week. When they heard they were going to do something with the Wizards players they got very excited," said fifth grade teacher Mr. Parodi. "It was really good because they pretty much got to do their own research and come up with the material and the way they wanted to present it. We helped them with how to put it together. They got very excited with all the information, in fact they had too much information and we weren’t able to do it all. It was a lot of fun. I could tell they were excited. You could see it in their faces and eyes that they were very excited and enjoying every moment."

The players then gave the students a special treat as Songaila and Pecherov held a question and answer session with the students and gave them autographed photos. As a final gift for all their hard work, Songaila and Pecherov gave the students tickets to an upcoming Wizards game.

"It was an amazing experience and to see the kids so excited was great," said Pecherov. "It was an amazing time."

To learn more about how the Wizards are giving back to the community please visit WizardsCare.com.