Home/Posts/Tag: Sidekick Hero Blog
15 Aug 2024

Introducing Hybrid Ministry w/ Nick Clason

By |2024-08-15T09:00:30-07:00August 15th, 2024|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog, Videos, Youth Ministry Ideas|3 Comments

A few months ago, Doug introduced you to one of our favorite Sidekick Heroes: Nick Clason (you can read that post here), and when he said that Nick is a national treasure (no seriously, that’s how Doug described him), he wasn’t joking.

I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Nick to talk about all things Sidekick, how to stop seeing cell phones as the enemy, and what it looks like for youth ministry to become a more engaging experience for students. Check it out below:

And if you’re interested in finding out more about what Nick is doing (and you should be), you should definitely check out his podcast: Hybrid Ministry. Here’s where you can find him:

And, who knows? You just might start seeing a bit more of Nick around the blog. So, definitely keep checking back.

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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30 May 2024

All the FREE Games in Sidekick!

By |2024-05-30T08:07:12-07:00May 30th, 2024|Sidekick Hero Blog, Sidekick: What's New|11 Comments

Obviously, we all know that Sidekick is the best thing to happen to youth ministry since that one guy wrote that one book… but did you know that Sidekick keeps getting better every single week? That’s right, each week, we release a new FREE resource that’s available exclusively to Sidekick users. And all you have to do is click the little button in the tool bar that looks like this:

And here’s what’s even better… as of May 30, 2024 (the date I’m writing this post), there are currently TWELVE premium games that are absolutely FREE in Sidekick. All you have to do is go get ’em!

And if you want to get an idea of what’s available, just scroll through the media gallery below:

And don’t forget that we’re adding new FREE content in Sidekick every single week, so be sure to check back often to see what’s new!

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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15 Apr 2024

New Feature Alert: LOOPING SLIDES & VIDEO CONTROLS!!

By |2024-04-15T13:15:06-07:00April 15th, 2024|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog|10 Comments

In October 1911, Roald Amundsen set out on the first-ever expedition to the South Pole. It took him and his team almost 2 months to make the journey, and when they got there, you know what they saw?

Snow… They saw lots and lots of snow.

Well, our developers have also been hard at work over the last 2 months, and quite frankly, we think they have a little more to show for it than tiny bits of frozen water. That’s right, today is the day that we proudly announce TWO MAJOR UPDATES to Sidekick!

The first new Sidekick feature is one that youth workers have been asking for since we first unveiled Sidekick back in December (we can’t believe Sidekick only launched a few months ago!). That’s right, we’re talking about…

LOOPING SLIDES!!

Now, Sidekick users can choose any section in their Sidekick presentation to auto-advance and repeat automatically! Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of LOOPING SLIDES in action!

But that’s not all!

In addition to LOOPING SLIDES, our ever-vigilant team of developers decided to bring you another highly requested feature:

ENHANCED VIDEO CONTROLS!!

Now, Sidekick users can set the starting position for any video (yes, this new feature works for your own videos that you upload and videos that are streamed from YouTube and Vimeo) and once a video has started, you can jump to any specific timecode!

First, let’s look at how to adjust the starting position for any video:

And then, let’s look at how to jump to any point in a video once it’s already playing:

We’re super excited about both of these updates, because they’re a direct response to feedback we’ve gotten from Sidekick users just like you!

And I can’t wait to tell you about what’s coming next… No, seriously, it’s pretty exciting… But you’ll just have to wait… Because I can’t tell you about it… Yeah… Even though I really want to…

We’ll be posting more about other new features in the coming days, but in the meantime, feel free to keep exploring Sidekick! And if you have any ideas for features that you think we should work on next, you should head over to our Feature Suggestion Page by clicking the button below:

Request a New Sidekick Feature!

That’s all for today, but if you’d like to see the other blog posts in the “How Do I…?” series, you can do so here: How Do I…?

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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11 Apr 2024

Free game in Sidekick! – Cereal Killer

By |2024-04-11T09:10:14-07:00April 11th, 2024|Youth Ministry Ideas|5 Comments

Have a cereal night at youth group with this fun, 6-week cereal elimination bracket! Use one poll each of the next 6 weeks to reveal the final top 6 cereals in your youth ministry. Be sure to write down the winner each week so you can input them into the Grand Final week 7 poll … to reveal the best cereal of all time!

You could also easily modify this to play all in the same service or at an event as well!

Sidekick is DYM’s brand-new presentation software! With interactive elements like live voting, name picker, wheels, and weekly free premium content, Sidekick is the future of presenting! Plus it’s cloud-based, so you can build your presentation at home and find it ready to go wherever you log in.

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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5 Apr 2024

How do I Sign Into the NEW Sidekick?

By |2024-04-18T14:59:22-07:00April 5th, 2024|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog, Sidekick: What's New, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|4 Comments

DYM Gold Members Rejoice! Sidekick is included in your membership!

1000’s of your youth ministry friends are using it every week. If you haven’t poked around yet and tried out Crowd Voting, the FREE section, the one-click integration to DYM products you already own, the “presenting from your phone or iPad”… there’s so much. And, we’re making it better every day.

Here’s how to log-in:

Let us know what you think and what you’d want for us to include in the ever-growing FREE category next. Even 100’s of your recent DYM purchases are instantly available in Sidekick to insert in just 1-click!.

Let us know if you have any questions,

Doug & Josh
[email protected]

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4 Apr 2024

Coming Soon: Looping Slides!! (and more!)

By |2024-04-04T11:27:15-07:00April 4th, 2024|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog|6 Comments

Without a doubt, this has been our MOST REQUESTED Sidekick feature, and I’m super-excited to say that it’s really close to being ready!

Yes. I’m talking about…

LOOPING SLIDES!!

It may still be another week or so before it’s ready for release, so I can’t show you a full walkthrough just yet, but I can show you some of the progress we’re making. Check it out:

That’s right! In the very near future, you’ll be able to add all of your announcement slides to a single section and then set the timer & walk away! And just like you’d expect, each slide will play for the specified length of time before automatically moving on to the next one. And when it gets to the end of the section, it’ll just automatically loop back to the beginning of the section.

But how about I just show you instead?

(click image to enlarge)

Again, it’s still a week or so away from being ready for prime time, but I just wanted to let you know that we’re listening and we are working tirelessly to make sure that Sidekick is the absolute best it can possibly be!

And the only way that happens is if you tell us what you need. Thankfully, we have a great way for our users to suggest new features and vote on features that have already been suggested! So feel free to head over to our Feature Suggestion Page by clicking the button below:

Request a New Sidekick Feature!

I’m so excited about Looping Slides that I almost forgot to mention another incredible feature that we’re working on…

Oh, wait. That’s right. Doug said that I am definitely not supposed to say anything about the upcoming video control feature that will let users set a starting point for videos as well as jump to specific timecodes while playing. Yeah, I’m definitely not supposed to say anything about that…

Oops… 😅

Until next time!

Blessings,

Josh Boldman

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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22 Mar 2024

Meet A Sidekick Hero: Zak Cummings

By |2024-03-23T06:39:16-07:00March 22nd, 2024|Sidekick Hero Blog|2 Comments

From Doug: I’ve only met Zak Cummings briefly… actually, I seem to remember playing him in pickleball a few years ago… but I know a lot of people who know him really well, and from what I can tell, Zak is the kind of youth worker that commits 128% (no, seriously, I heard something about him dressing up as a court jester and a cowboy for most of high school camp??). He’s the youth pastor of a growing youth ministry at The Chapel in McHenry, Illinois. But more importantly, Zak has a heart for seeing his students grow closer to Jesus. He recently got a chance to use Sidekick Live Voting during his teaching time, and I couldn’t wait for him to share his experience with you. So please give a standing ovation to our next Sidekick Hero… Zak Cummings!!

Hey everyone!

Over the past three years, I have been looking for ways to make my student night programming easier and more efficient, and I believe that I have found the perfect tool… The New Sidekick! I have been Sidekick Legacy in my ministry for the last two years, and it has always been a helpful tool. From doing giveaways using “Pick Me” to utilizing the “Boxes” for new student prizes, Sidekick Legacy has been so helpful.

But then, an even better resource came along: The New Sidekick.

Zak1

(click image to enlarge)

Here are 3 reasons why Sidekick will help you CRUSH your student nights:

1. Say goodbye to switching back and forth between programs.

If you’ve used Sidekick Legacy, you know what it’s like to flip-flop between ProPresenter, Boxes, Pick Me, and back to ProPresenter. And you know what that’s like, then you know how inconvenient that can be. Thankfully those days are over! You can now run almost all of your programming through Sidekick without having to go back and forth between programs and presentations. The first time I used the New Sidekick, I had Pick Me, Live Voting (Which is AMAZING), and all of my message slides in the same presentation! I did not have to switch between software or change presentations once! I simply clicked the next button, and everything flowed smoothly.

2. Student engagement will increase using the Live Voting tool.

As most of you know, it can be challenging at times to keep middle and high schoolers engaged during announcements, games, and the message. The new Live Voting tool will help you engage with students in a way that is speaking their language: technology. I recently started using Live Voting  during my messages, and it has allowed students to engage and participate like never before! All your students need is a phone to scan the QR code, and they’ll see real-time voting results. Plus, it’s incredibly easy to set up your presentation using the premade slides that the Sidekick team has made available in the FREE section.

No seriously, check it out:

3. It is incredibly user-friendly!

Recently, I had a student who was supposed to run the presentation for my student night but was unable to do so at the last minute. So, I gave one of my young adult leaders a quick run-through on how to use everything, and he was a Sidekick pro in no time! This leader ran the presentation flawlessly. If you didn’t know better, you’d believe he’d been using Sidekick for years! I am excited to continue to teach students and leaders how to use Sidekick, because they’ll look awesome, they’ll be encouraged, and most importantly, they’ll feel competent in their role.

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

Don’t just take my word for how amazing the new version of Sidekick is. Go ahead and see for yourself!

Quick Note From Doug:

I actually found a picture of when me and Josh beat Zak and Drew in pickleball back in 2022. Don’t think that this means Zak isn’t good at pickleball… It just means that Josh and I are better at pickleball!

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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20 Mar 2024

New Feature Alert: SLIDE LABELS!!

By |2024-03-20T13:37:22-07:00March 20th, 2024|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog|5 Comments

Have you ever noticed how sometimes it’s the littlest things that bring you joy?

That’s why Skittles aren’t 32lbs each. And it’s why we don’t put Toyota Corollas on engagement rings.

But you want to know what little thing you can do to bring you joy right now? Yup! You can now add and edit…

SLIDE LABELS!!

That’s right! You can now change the label on any slide in your Sidekick presentation!

And the best part is that it’s SUPER easy! Check out this step-by-step guide to adding and editing slide labels in Sidekick:

And you wanna know the best part? Of course, you do!

The absolute best part about the SLIDE LABELS in Sidekick is that it’s available right now for all users!

We’ll be posting more about other new features in the coming days, but in the meantime, feel free to keep exploring Sidekick! And if you have any ideas for features that you think we should work on next, you should head over to our Feature Suggestion Page by clicking the button below:

Request a New Sidekick Feature!

That’s all for today, but if you’d like to see the other blog posts in the “How Do I…?” series, you can do so here: How Do I…?

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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1 Mar 2024

Meet A Sidekick Hero: Nick Clason

By |2024-03-01T08:51:02-08:00March 1st, 2024|Sidekick Hero Blog|4 Comments

From Doug:

Nick Clason is a national treasure. Not only is he one of our more prolific DYM authors (no seriously, go check out all the stuff he has created for the DYM Store), but he’s the kind of guy that never settles for things just being “good enough.” He’s constantly pushing the envelope and challenging youth workers everywhere to be more creative and to meet students where they’re at (which Nick will tell you is online).

Recently, I asked Nick what he thought about the new Sidekick, and he said that he’d rather show me than tell me. So without further delay, I present Nick Clason’s take on the new Sidekick:

And seriously, if you haven’t checked out Nick’s YouTube channel, you definitely should: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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29 Feb 2024

New Feature Alert: FREE CONTENT!!

By |2024-02-29T08:19:15-08:00February 29th, 2024|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog|5 Comments

Let’s just say that February has been a BUSY month for the Sidekick team!

In the last month, we’ve released:

  • PICK ME! – Users can now create a random (or not-so-random) picker that (so far) can handle up to 200 names!
  • BULK ADDING for PICK ME and WHEELS! – Users no longer have to add each PICK ME or WHEEL item one at a time. Now, users can copy and paste a list from virtually anywhere (Apple Notes, Google Sheets, Excel, etc…), which makes the whole process that much faster!
  • DYM INTEGRATION – This is a biggie. DYM INTEGRATION allows users to import the resources that they purchased on DYM directly into Sidekick without ever having to download anything!

But that’s not all! We just couldn’t close out the month without adding one more little bit of DYM magic to Sidekick. That’s right, we’re talking about…

FREE STUFF!!!

That’s right! If you’ve used Sidekick in the last few days, you may have noticed that there’s a new toolbar at the top of the screen when you’re in “Overview” mode:

Now, sure. There are two buttons that should be pretty familiar by now. On the left, you’ve got the “🎹 Song” Button that allows users to import songs directly from CCLI using their SongSelect account. And then there’s the “🦙 DYM” Button that we talked about earlier that lets users add resources that they’ve purchased from the DYM Store.

But that about that magical middle button??

Yup! The “🎁 Free” Button does EXACTLY what you think it should. All you have to do is click on it, and it will bring up a window that looks something like this:

As of the time that I’m writing this post, there are currently 10 INCREDIBLE resources that are completely FREE for all Sidekick users (although you may need to upgrade your membership to accommodate the number of students you have participating in Live Voting.)

These FREE resources include classics like:

  • The Impossible Shot
  • Useless Facts Countdowns 1 & 2
  • Extreme Four Corners
  • Popcorn Story
  • Sword Drill

And interactive templates to help you get started like:

  • PICK ME! Templates
  • Emotional Llama Wheels

Plus, we’ve even got completely built-out, fully interactive games for you to play with your group like:

  • Wilderness Survival Guide
  • Swiftest Swifties

Actually, check out what one user has already said about our new Wilderness Survival Guide game:

I’m so grateful for everything you guys are doing to make youth ministry AWESOME. We just used the Wilderness Survival Guide game last night for our high schoolers because it was easy to just add to Sidekick. They lost their minds. It was a huge win. Thank you!

– Jeff

And you wanna know the best part? Of course, you do!

The absolute best part about the 🎁 FREE content on Sidekick is that we’re adding new stuff all the time! That’s right, be sure to click the “🎁 FREE” Button often to see what new resources are available from your friends at Sidekick!

We’ll be posting more about other new features in the coming days, but in the meantime, feel free to keep exploring Sidekick! And if you have any ideas for features that you think we should work on next, you should head over to our Feature Suggestion Page by clicking the button below:

Request a New Sidekick Feature!

That’s all for today, but if you’d like to see the other blog posts in the “How Do I…?” series, you can do so here: How Do I…?

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

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