This Privacy Policy explains how Sew It Forward collects, uses, shares, stores and protects information when you visit our website, contact our bench, book a fitting window, attend a lesson, donate sewing materials or use any of the services we offer. It also explains the choices available to you and the steps you can take to reach us about privacy questions. This policy applies to this website and to the in person services we provide from our sewing bench in North York. The website and the supporting record tools were designed and developed by StitchForward, working alongside the Sew It Forward team, and this policy reflects the way those tools handle information. We ask that you read the full document before you send us any personal information. If any part of this policy is unclear, please write to us at notify@sewitforward.buzz and we will explain it in plain language.
Sew It Forward is a sewing bench and computer integrated systems design practice located at 2975 Don Mills Road, North York - M2J 3B7, Canada (CA). In this policy, the words Sew It Forward, we, us and our refer to this business and the people who work at the bench. We run mending services, lessons, donation intake, fitting hours, a paper pattern library and seasonal sewing bee sittings. We also build and maintain the small record tools that keep those services organised.
The website at sewitforward.buzz serves as our public notice board. It describes what we do, how to reach us and the rules that govern the way we handle information. When you interact with the website or with our bench, you are dealing with Sew It Forward directly, and you can always reach a person at the contact details listed near the end of this policy.
We are the controller of the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide why information is collected and how it is used. We take that role seriously, because much of what reaches our bench is personal: a garment that needs a careful repair, a class note that carries a student name, a donation that comes with a short story. We treat all of it with the same care we give to a hand stitched seam.
This policy covers personal information that we collect through the website, through email and telephone contact, through the contact form, and through in person interactions at the North York bench. It also covers the record tools that our team uses to manage mending tickets, lesson note runs, donation logs, fitting hour windows, pattern library reviews and sewing bee sittings.
This policy does not cover information that you share with other organisations, even when those organisations are mentioned on our website or when we recommend a supplier. It also does not cover public information that you choose to post in a public forum, a community notice board or a social media account that belongs to you. If you follow a link from our site to another site, the privacy practices of that other site apply, and we encourage you to read its privacy notice before you share anything.
Our services are intended for adults and for young people who attend with a guardian. Where a young person attends a lesson or a sewing bee sitting, we ask for the details of the responsible adult, and we keep those details only for the purpose of safe attendance and emergency contact.
We collect only the information we need to run the bench and to stay in touch with the people who use it. The categories below describe what we may collect in the ordinary course of business.
When you send us a message, book a fitting or register for a lesson, we may collect your name, email address, telephone number and mailing address. We use these details to reply to you, confirm an appointment and send the information you requested.
For a mending ticket we may record a short description of the garment, the repairs requested, the thread and material used, the date the item arrived and the date it was collected. For a fitting we may record measurements and fitting notes so that the next visit can begin where the last one ended.
For lessons we keep attendance lists, lesson topics, note runs and any safety briefing that was given. For sewing bee sittings we keep a short record of the shared project and the names of participants who choose to be listed.
When you donate cloth, thread, tools or a machine, we may record your name, the type and weight of the item, the condition noted at the desk and the date received. We do this so that the donation log is complete and so that we can thank you properly.
We keep the emails, messages and notes that you send us so that we can follow a conversation and resolve any question that arises. This includes messages sent from the contact form, which may leave your own email program and arrive in our inbox.
Our hosting provider may record basic technical data such as the type of device used, the browser version, the page requested and the time of the request. This data helps us keep the site available and secure. We do not use it to build a profile of you.
Most of the information we hold comes directly from you. You give it to us when you fill in the contact form, send an email, telephone the bench, visit in person, attend a lesson or drop off a donation.
A small amount of information arrives automatically when you use the website. This includes the technical data described above and any information stored on your device by the small scripts that make the page work. The section on cookies explains that in more detail.
We may also receive information from a person who books on your behalf, such as a friend who asks about a fitting window for a shared garment. In that case we record only what the booking requires and we confirm with you before we take any further notes. We do not buy personal information from data brokers, and we do not gather information from public sources for the purpose of contacting you without your involvement.
We use personal information for specific and limited purposes. Each purpose is connected to a service you have asked for, a legal duty we must meet or a legitimate interest that is balanced against your rights.
Where the law requires consent, we ask for it clearly and we keep a record of the permission given. Where the law allows us to rely on a legitimate interest, we balance that interest against your reasonable expectations and we limit what we collect.
The bench runs on paper first and on a small digital record second. A mending ticket is written by hand, checked by a second person and then entered into the ticket log. The log lets us answer a simple question at any time: where is this item, what was done to it and who is waiting for it.
Lesson note runs are written during or just after a class. A copy goes home with the student and a copy stays in the run file. We remove any detail that is not needed for the lesson itself, and we keep the run file out of public view.
Donation logs record what arrived at the desk and what happened to it afterwards. These logs help us report honestly to donors and to the community that supports the bench. We do not publish donor names unless the donor gives clear permission.
Pattern library reviews are stored as index cards with a short written note. The note records the pattern number, the review date and the reason for any change. Pattern reviews are not connected to any individual customer.
Sewing bee records list the date, the shared project and the names of participants who ask to be included. Anyone may ask to be left out of the record, and we will update the entry without question.
Our service providers help us host the website, deliver email and keep the digital copies of our bench records. They are chosen for reliability and for a clear approach to privacy. Each provider is bound by a written agreement that sets out how long it may keep data, how it must protect it and what it may not do with it.
A provider may store data in a data centre outside Canada. When that happens, the information remains protected by the agreement with us and by the laws that apply to the provider. We review these arrangements from time to time and we change providers when a better option is available.
Our email provider handles messages sent to notify@sewitforward.buzz and messages sent from the contact form on this site. The contact form does not send data to our servers directly. Instead, it opens your own email program with the message prepared, and you decide whether to send it. This design reduces the amount of information that passes through third party systems.
We keep information only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected. The periods below describe our usual practice, and we may keep a record longer when a legal duty requires it.
When a period ends, we delete the record or make it anonymous so that it can no longer be linked to you. Paper records are shredded at the bench, and digital records are removed from the active system and from backups within the normal backup cycle.
We protect information with a mixture of physical and digital measures. The bench is kept in a locked room when it is not staffed. Paper ticket books, lesson run files and donation logs are stored in a closed cabinet. Digital records are kept behind individual accounts with strong passwords and two step verification.
Access is limited to the people who need it to do their work. A volunteer who helps with a sewing bee does not see fitting measurements or contact messages. A person who manages the donation log does not see lesson notes. We review access rights when a team member starts or leaves.
No system is perfectly secure. If a privacy incident occurs, we investigate it promptly, reduce the risk, and notify the people affected and the relevant authority when the law requires it. We also record the incident internally so that we can learn from it and improve our practice.
Our services are designed for adults, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from a young person without the involvement of a guardian. A young person may attend a lesson or a sewing bee sitting when a responsible adult has booked the place and has agreed to the safety briefing.
Where we hold details of a young person, we collect only the name, the guardian contact and any health note that is needed for safe attendance. We keep those details separate from the general lesson run, and we remove them when the attendance record reaches the end of its retention period.
A guardian may ask to see, correct or delete information about a young person at any time by writing to notify@sewitforward.buzz. We will respond promptly and we will explain any step we take.
You have meaningful rights over the information we hold about you. Subject to the law of the place where you live, you may exercise the rights listed below.
To exercise a right, write to notify@sewitforward.buzz with enough detail for us to find your record. We may ask for proof of identity so that we do not release information to the wrong person. We aim to answer within thirty days. If a request is complex, we will tell you why we need more time and give you an expected date.
We do not charge a fee for a normal request. If a request is clearly unfounded or excessive, we may decline it and explain our reason in writing.
You are always free to choose what you share with us. You may give a first name only, use a secondary email address, or ask that we contact you by telephone instead of email. You may ask us to keep a note off a public record, and we will honour the request.
You may also choose how you receive information from us. If you no longer wish to receive a seasonal note about sewing bee sittings, reply to any message with a short request and we will remove you from that list. Service messages, such as a notice that a mending ticket is ready, will still be sent while a ticket is open.
If you use the contact form, remember that the form prepares a message in your own email program. You can review the message, change it or close the window without sending anything. Nothing reaches us until you press send in your mail program.
Sew It Forward is based in Canada, and our main records are kept at the North York bench. Some service providers may store data in other countries. When information leaves Canada, we take steps to make sure it remains protected to a standard comparable to the one described in this policy.
These steps include written agreements with providers, review of their security practices, and a preference for providers that allow us to choose a Canadian region where that is practical. We do not transfer information to a provider that refuses to commit to reasonable safeguards.
If you would like to know which providers are involved in a specific service, write to us and we will explain the arrangements in plain language.
We send very few messages. A message may confirm a booking, remind you about a fitting window, share a lesson note or let you know that a mending ticket is ready for collection. These service messages are part of the service itself.
From time to time we may send a short note about a seasonal sewing bee sitting or a new pattern review. We send such notes only to people who have asked for them, and every note includes a simple way to stop receiving them.
We do not send unsolicited bulk email, and we do not pass your address to another organisation for its own marketing. If you receive a message that claims to come from Sew It Forward but looks unusual, do not reply to it. Forward it to notify@sewitforward.buzz and we will check whether it is genuine.
Donations of cloth, thread, tools and machines keep the bench alive. When you donate, we ask for a name and a way to reach you so that we can acknowledge the gift and answer a question if one arises. You may donate anonymously, in which case we record only the item and the date.
The donation log records the weight and condition of each item. We keep this record so that the bench can report honestly on what it receives and what it passes on. We do not publish donor names without clear permission, and we never sell or trade donor details.
If a donated machine needs repair before it can be used, we record the repair in the same way as a mending ticket. That record helps us understand the full life of the machine and decide whether it should stay at the bench or be passed to a student.
This website may link to a supplier, a community group or another site that we think is useful. A link is not a promise about the privacy practices of the site you reach. Once you leave our site, the privacy notice of the other site applies.
We choose links with care, but we cannot control what another site does with your information. We recommend that you read the privacy notice of any site before you share personal details, and that you use a separate address when you are unsure.
If you find a link on our site that leads to a page you consider unsafe, write to notify@sewitforward.buzz and we will review it. We remove links that no longer meet our standard.
The bench is run by people. We do not use automated systems to make decisions about you that have a legal or similarly significant effect. Our small record tools help us sort and find information, but a person makes every decision about a ticket, a fitting, a lesson place or a donation.
The scroll effects and the reveal animations on this website are presentational only. They do not analyse your behaviour, score you, or influence what you see on the basis of a profile. If we ever introduce a feature that uses automated processing in a meaningful way, we will describe it here and give you a way to ask for human review.
A sewing bench uses sharp tools, hot irons and machines with moving parts. For safety reasons we may record a short note when a participant tells us about an allergy, a mobility need or a medical condition that could matter during a lesson or a fitting.
We collect this information only with consent, we keep it in a separate file, and we share it only with the team member who needs it for safe attendance. We delete the note when the attendance record reaches the end of its retention period, or earlier if you ask.
If an incident happens at the bench, we write a brief report so that we can improve our practice. The report records what happened and what we changed. It is kept in the same secure cabinet as the other bench records.
If you have a question about this policy or about the way we have handled your information, please tell us. Write to notify@sewitforward.buzz with the subject line Privacy Question, or call +13317043905 during business hours. We will acknowledge your message and give you a named person who will handle it.
We investigate every complaint and we explain what we found. If we made a mistake, we correct it and we tell you what we changed so that the same mistake is less likely to happen again. We keep a short record of complaints and outcomes so that we can review our practice each season.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may contact the privacy regulator in your jurisdiction. In Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada accepts complaints about organisations subject to federal privacy law. We will cooperate fully with any review.
We review this policy each season and whenever we change the way the bench works. When a change is material, we update the date at the top of this page and we describe the change in a short note so that you can see what is different.
A change does not apply retroactively to information that was collected under an earlier version unless the law allows it or you agree. If a change would affect a purpose you have already agreed to, we will ask for fresh consent.
We recommend that you read this page when you return to the site. The current version is always the one published here, and it replaces any earlier version.
Sew It Forward
2975 Don Mills Road, North York - M2J 3B7, Canada (CA)
Email: notify@sewitforward.buzz
Telephone: +13317043905
You can also reach us through the contact page on this website. The contact form prepares a message in your own email program, and you may review it before you send. If you prefer a telephone conversation, call during business hours and ask for the bench manager.
This policy was prepared with the help of StitchForward, who designed and developed the website and the supporting record tools. StitchForward does not receive personal information from the bench except where a technical support task requires a limited review under the agreement between the two parties.