From Graterford to grants, El Sawyer has used his past to affect others’ future

Bobbing and Weaving Through A Minefield

When El Sawyer was 17 years old, he was sentenced to 8 years in Graterford prison for a drug-related shooting. At night, he lay awake in his cell, in fear of a rotating string of cellmates in the bunk above him, thinking about what went on in the prison-the stabbings, killings, suicide, depression, and anger.