HandsOn FAQs

Volunteer participation is very important, therefore it is essential that volunteers let us
know in advance if they are unable to make it and cancel their sign-up online right away
to open the slot for other volunteers. Volunteers who do not show up without advance
notice 3 times, will have their accounts suspended for a set period. This ensures volunteer
opportunities are utilised effectively and efficiently, maximising the positive impact on
the community.

Please click the Login button in the top right-hand corner of the homepage. Select the
“Forgot your password” link. Enter your email address and follow the instructions sent by
email to your inbox. If you are still unable to reset your password and log in, please
contact us at [email protected].

HandsOn’s recommendation is that volunteers of any age create their own accounts. This
is the only way they can have a record of their volunteer service history, which is
valuable in our experience as volunteers tend to come back! We are now seeing many
children create accounts with their parents’ help using their school email address, which
they have frequently used for home learning and Zoom. Guardians do not need to worry
about checking their child’s emails for service reminders though, as all adults will also be
receiving these with the same information if signed up for the same activity.
Here are the steps for registration.

1. Visit https://handsonhongkong.org/volunteer-sign-up
2. Fill out the form and hit submit. Be sure to specify your language abilities.
3. Sign up for volunteer activities on our calendar:
   https://handsonhongkong.org/calendar

Adults can sign up for this activity directly online. After you create the HandsOn
volunteer accounts for the children, please let us know the phone numbers or email
addresses of their HandsOn volunteer accounts respectively. We’ll add them in manually.

There are select volunteer activities where children over a particular age may participate.
Please check the age requirements on the details page of each volunteer opportunity to
learn more.

Every volunteer on the waitlist will receive an auto-generated email when the volunteer
spot is available. Please click on the link to claim the vacancy spot. If the link doesn’t
work, it means the spot is taken by another waitlisted volunteer who acted faster to get
the spot based on the first-come-first-serve principle.

You can log in to your account and click on Volunteer> My account> Overview, and click
the ‘Print Volunteer History’ at the bottom of the page to save the volunteer record which
can be served as the official proof document. Since the volunteer hours are verified on a
weekly basis, there may be some delay in viewing the completed service hours. If you
require proof with our organization chop, you can send us an email to
[email protected] to request a soft copy certificate.

The volunteer hours verification is updated on a weekly basis (usually every Tuesday.)
Our team receives the attendance report from other charities for the completed volunteer
activity. We then manually verify the hours for each volunteer. If your volunteer hours
have not been verified within 10 days, please contact us at [email protected].

Some of our programs require specific language skills based on the activities involved
such as speaking Cantonese to non-english speakers. If you think there is an issue with
your current language setting please check your account settings. You can update your
language settings by following these steps:

1. Log in to your account, go to “Volunteers” – “My Account” – “Skills” and click
   the “+” buttons to set your skill/language level.
2. Please ensure you click “Update” at the bottom of the page after you are done!

Many of our programs set an age criteria based on the activities involved. If for whatever
reason you think your profile settings may be incorrect, you can update your age by
following these steps.

1. Login in to your account
2. Click into Volunteer–My account—Personal information—Change date of birth.

Here are the steps to volunteer with a team:

1. Visit https://handsonhongkong.org/volunteer-sign-up
2. Fill out the form and hit submit. Be sure to specify your language abilities.
3. You can now sign up for events found in the Calendar. Make sure you choose
   “sign up with a team” https://handsonhongkong.org/calendar

After creating your team in our system, each of your team’s volunteers will receive an
email asking them to create a HandsOn account (if they don’t already have one) and to
sign up to join your activity. Please note those team-members without a HandsOn account
will have 48 hours to create one before their spot is released. You can find more details
on this page.