Last updated: September 26, 2026
The Friendship Bench (thefriendshipbench.org) is run by The Lucas Fiorella Friendship Bench, a volunteer-driven not-for-profit organization that brings student mental health programs to Canadian schools. This page explains what information the site collects, why, and what happens to it.
What we collect
When you send us a form (Contact, Request a Bench, Corporate Support, Book Sam to Speak or the community request form), we receive what you type into it: usually your name, email address, phone number and message, and for bench requests also the name, type and address of your institution and your position there. To protect the forms from spam and abuse, we also record your IP address and your browser’s user agent with the message.
When you subscribe to our newsletter, we receive your email address and the date you subscribed.
When you use the “Find a Bench” map and choose to share your location, your browser tells the map where you are so it can show the benches nearest to you. This happens in your browser only: your location is not sent to our server or stored by us.
When you just read the site, you don’t give us any personal information. There are no visitor accounts. Comments on older articles are closed; the comments that readers left in the past are kept as an archive.
How we use it
We use form messages only to read and reply to you and to arrange what you asked for (for example a bench, a presentation or a partnership). We use newsletter addresses only to send you news about The Friendship Bench and #YellowIsForHello; every newsletter lets you unsubscribe. We don’t sell, rent or share your information for marketing or advertising.
Where it is stored and who can see it
Messages and newsletter addresses are stored in the site’s database on its hosting server and can be seen only by the site’s administrators. A copy of each message may be emailed to our team through our email delivery provider, Resend.
Like most websites, the hosting server may keep standard technical logs (such as IP addresses and the pages requested) for security and troubleshooting.
Maps, videos and cookies
The site itself sets no cookies for visitors and uses no analytics, advertising or social media trackers. The share buttons under articles are plain links: nothing is loaded from Facebook, X, Pinterest or LinkedIn unless you click one.
Some pages include content from other companies: the “Find a Bench” map is provided by Google Maps, and videos are played from YouTube (in its privacy-enhanced mode) or Vimeo (with “do not track” turned on). When a page with a map or a video loads, your browser connects to that company, which receives your IP address and may use cookies under its own privacy policy.
Administrators who sign in to manage the site receive a sign-in cookie; this does not affect visitors. If we ever add analytics, we will update this page first and ask for your consent where required.
How long we keep it
We keep form messages only as long as we need them to respond to you and follow up, and then delete them. Newsletter addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them.
Your choices
You can ask us to show you, correct or delete the information you sent us, including a comment you left on an older article. Write to us through the Contact page or reply to any email we sent you.
Changes to this policy
If we change how the site handles information, we will update this page and the date at the top.