Passion in Action with Darryl Wyrick’s Unravel the Pages

Creating a community driven initiative takes passion and action. First, let’s talk about passion – I’d argue that we all have something we have a deep-rooted passion for. Something that when we are in the process of thinking on that passionate topic we lose track of time, go down a whirl-wind of google searches or, what’s even better, we start creating. Once you can create an actionable output behind your passion a community starts to form.

For Darryl Wyrick, that started with cracking open books. A passion for reading turned into a small book club, turned virtual book club that scaled, to a platform that is not only about reading, but what reading truly represents. For Darryl, reading transcends into an understanding of self, ownership in writing your own narrative - that’s freedom.

“Once a man learns to read, he will forever be free.”
-Frederick Douglas

What ignited the passion behind Unravel The Pages, Darryl’s community book club, is his understanding of the current literacy rates in America and what the means for our future. The shocking truth is that 21% of the general population read below a fifth-grade reading level, and that number rises in the African American community.

He reflects on how we often are surrounded by like-minded people and forget that if you attended a college or university, you make up a very small percentage of the world. He uses his platform to focus on how to not only attain knowledge and wisdom but to transfer it to your communities and others.

After coupling the overall problem as it relates to literacy rates in our community with his passion he created Unravel The Pages to foster a community of intellectuals who want to spread knowledge, discuss, and breakdown literacy works. His Unravel The Pages has covered books ranging from spiritual, self-help, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship where participants join a weekly call and online community to discuss the monthly book.

After a conversation with Darryl, you’ll quickly see how his passion quickly spirals into new ideas, plans, and executable actions. Recently I caught up with him to talk about our respective brands, brainstorm, and discuss about our 2019 plans. I could tell the wheels where spinning in his head the entire conversation as if I was watching his passion turn into actionable ideas in real time.

Through the conversation he brought up how physically unravelling the pages in the monthly book has turned into to unraveling the pages of each and every one of our lives; he encourages us to own our narratives be self-aware and mold the knowledge that can be found in books to empower ourselves. It is this constant ‘leveling up with intention’ that he applies to his organization that will breed more success and a growing community.

It is in this ‘leveling up’ process where he’s experienced his greatest accomplishment, the ability to provide scholarships to two University of Texas at San Antonio alum this past 2018 homecoming.

As Darryl and Unravel the Pages have already been off to the races this year; the organization is being intentional about three things in order to scale their impact.

They are penetrating underrepresented communities and picking up books that are relevant to the communities’ livelihood and development.
creating an inclusive, welcoming, and engaging social spaces to allow for intentional conversations.
Spreading awareness on the literacy rates in America especially as they relate to marginalized groups.

“I want to look back and say that through this organization we were able to encourage those to read and through that, gain wisdom. In parallel we will break a generational stigma that ‘black men don’t read.’” - darryl wyrick

When asked what Unravel the Pages legacy will be, Darryl states, “I want to look back and say that through this organization we were able to encourage those to read and through that, gain wisdom. In parallel we will break a generational stigma that ‘black men don’t read.’” Through that, Darryl is leaving his community grater than he found it.

As Darryl said, “there is power knowledge and a lot that knowledge lies in books.” I encourage you to support Unravel the Pages by joining their book club and weekly meetings (both virtual and in-person) or even sharing the club with a friend. Whether it be social media or through word of mouth he encourages you to spark intentional conversation on the topic, because it is needed.