Mandatory Service 101
If you’ve found yourself in need of completing mandatory service hours for graduation or work, by court order, or for any other reason, Hands On Atlanta is ready to help you out! Having posted more than four thousand opportunities that accept court-ordered volunteers this year, we have a simple four step process to help you meet your service requirements. Before we get into detail about those steps, here are some general tips to keep in mind along the way:
Get started early! It’s easy to get stressed if you have 40 service hours to complete in a week, but remember that if you start earlier you will have a much easier time fitting your requirements into your schedule.
You can sign up for as many service projects as you are able to attend provided that they aren’t full. We have projects available every week on a variety of days and times giving you lots of options!
If you need to provide the name of a contact for your mandatory hours, we recommend that you choose one organization to serve all of your hours with. It will make it easy to provide the information for your main point of contact there instead of providing a point of contact for several different organizations.
With those tips in mind, let’s get into all the details of how to meet your mandatory service requirements.
Sign Up: Make sure that you’ve already made an account with Hands On Atlanta. If you haven’t done that yet, there’s no need to worry. Making an account is quick an easy. Go to the sign up page here and fill out the form. Remember to accept the terms and conditions before you click submit, and you will be ready to go!
Find a project: The easiest way to start finding service projects is to search our opportunity calendar. There you can search by date, impact area, location and more! Make sure to expand the filters and select the filter for court ordered volunteers to ensure that all the opportunities you see are right for you.
From virtual opportunities to food pantry assistance, Hands On Atlanta posts well over 100 volunteer opportunities in a typical week to help you find something that interests you. Sign up for as many projects as you will attend, and you’re ready to begin serving!
Please note that if you try to sign up for a project that says, “Express Interest,” that project will need to approve you. This doesn’t change any of your registration steps, but know that you will need to receive email confirmation before you’re officially signed up.
Serve: You’re now ready to get out and serve the ATL community! Whether you’re dialing in from Zoom or driving up to an in-person event, there are a few things to keep in mind.
First, remember to double check that you’re arriving for your project at the right date and time that you registered for. Many opportunities have multiple time slots, and we want to make sure you’re here for the right one!
Also, remember to sign in for the project because without signing we can’t verify your hours. Verifying your hours is the only way to get a service letter confirming your mandatory service, but we’ll talk more about this in step four.
The last thing to do when serving is to have fun! Take advantage of the opportunity to do something good, meet other people and gain a better understanding of challenges facing our community.
Request a Service Letter: After completing all your hours, it’s time to request a service letter. Hands On Atlanta writes service letters once a week on Wednesdays. This is important to know if you are faced with a time sensitive request. Please plan accordingly. We send certified letters digitally, on Hands On Atlanta letterhead, with a signature.
When writing service letters, we can only confirm your verified hours of service. We understand that it can be frustrating to wait for hours to be verified, especially if you need them quickly. Please know that it typically takes between 5 and 7 business days for volunteer hours to be verified. If your hours are not verified within that time frame, please reach out to the organization directly. Hands On Atlanta cannot verify your hours for projects we don’t manage. If that doesn’t work either, then please reach out to Hands On Atlanta, and we will message the organization directly about getting hours verified.
We know that sometimes a mailed letter with a wet ink signature is required, but unfortunately under COVID-19 regulations that is not a requirement that we can meet because our offices are closed. However, if you would like for us to reach out to the person requesting a mailed letter to explain our current regulations, you can email us with their contact information.