Hands On Bay Area Day is an event during which twelve-hundred volunteers at 51 community service projects across the Bay Area completed more than 7,000 hours of service valued at more than $120,000. This day is also the biggest fundraising event for Hands On Bay Area, when a large part of its budget is acquired through donations raised by volunteers. It is an organization that provides year-round service to the community.

Hands On Bay Area is a unique organization with a mission to mobilize communities to action. Many people find it difficult to volunteer for several reasons: trouble choosing what activity to do; the long-term commitment often required by organizations; and the number of hours organizations request weekly or monthly of volunteers. 

What HOBA does is eliminate these barriers by acting as a liaison between volunteers and organizations and coordinating projects that make it easy to volunteer and help organizations meet their needs. They use an interactive database and email to do so.

Each month HOBA offers hundreds of meaningful volunteer projects coordinated with over 300 agencies. Hands On Bay Area projects each have a project leader who acts as the contact person for volunteers and ensures events go smoothly at the site. People interested in volunteering sign up for a one-hour orientation with HOBA, at which they learn about HOBA and how to sign up for projects. They are given an account on the website, and after it's activated, they can peruse the calendar and sign themselves up for projects. The volunteers control how often they do a project and how many projects they complete. HOBA simply asks that volunteers try to complete two projects annually.

Hands On Bay Area offers a wide array of projects: promoting literacy, maintaining parks, providing meals at homeless shelters, mentoring children, socializing with senior citizens, and much more. Volunteers often develop friendships as the encounter each other on various projects. There is also a team activity, where groups of people can sign up to participate in a set number of projects that focus on an impact area; by doing this, they deepen their knowledge about the issue and develop community together.