William Beecher handing Dr. Boachie-Adjei the 'Lessons for Life' donation at The Hospital for Special Surgery. During the 2007-2008 school year, Garden City high school student William Beecher established a charity called 'Lessons for Life'. William organized several high school music students to help raise funds for a non-profit charity, called the FOCOS Group. The students gave music lessons to elementary aged children in Garden City with all proceeds going to FOCOS.

The mission of the charity is to provide orthopedic and spine care to the people of Ghana in West Africa.The FOCOS charity is led by Dr.Boachie- Adjei, Chief of the Scoliosis Service at Hospital for Special Surgery, who travels to Ghana several times a year to perform complex spine surgery on both children and adults. There are only 12 orthopedic surgeons in Ghana to provide care for 20 million Ghanian people. The money the students raised will go towards building a 30 bed orthopedic hospital to provide necessary health care for the people of Ghana.

While helping a charitable organization, these students also gave young children the opportunity to learn a musical instrument and help encourage students to participate in the wonderful music program that the Garden City school district has to offer.

William would like to thank the following high school music students for their volunteer work: Brigid Martin, Catherine Appell, Evan Heinze, and Alyssa Olivo.