Terms of use

Who we are

TCHF is a registered Ontario charity based at 2030 Bristol Circle, Suite 210, Oakville, ON. We run My TCHF, starting with Shovel For Seniors (snow clearing for seniors and others who need help) and Donate Blood with TCHF.

Accepting these terms

By creating an account or using My TCHF, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use My TCHF. If you are a parent or guardian giving consent for someone under 18, you agree to these terms for them and for yourself.

What is available now and what is coming

My TCHF is the website my.tchf.ca and the My TCHF phone app (Android and iPhone). These terms cover both.

With it you can ask for help at home, volunteer (applications, checks, shifts and hours), give guardian consent, join Donate Blood with TCHF, donate, message the volunteer or household on a job, and talk to TCHF.

Who can use My TCHF

• You must be at least 14 years old to create an account.
• Volunteers aged 18 or older must pass TCHF's checks (see "Volunteering").
• Volunteers aged 14 to 17 may volunteer only with the consent of a verified parent or legal guardian.
• Requests for help must be made by an adult (18 or older) — either the resident, or a relative, friend or neighbour who manages the home as Family & friends. If you ask for help for someone else, you confirm that they agree to it.
• TCHF offers services only in the towns and areas where they are open. We decide which households and volunteers we can accept.

Your account and keeping it safe

• Each person has one account. Do not share it or use someone else's.
• Give true, complete information and keep it up to date.
• Keep your password and email account safe. If you use "Continue with Google", keep your Google account safe too.
• Tell us right away at info@tchf.ca if you think someone else has used your account, or if you lose a phone that is signed in.
• You are responsible for what happens in your account, unless it happens because of our mistake.

Get Help

• You can add a household, which TCHF staff review before you can ask for help. Staff may put a household on a waitlist or decline it, for example when a city is full.
• You can request help when you need it. We do our best, but we cannot promise that a volunteer will be available, or when they will arrive. Times shown in the app are estimates.
• Volunteers work outside only, for example clearing snow from driveways, walkways and front steps. They do not come inside your home.
• My TCHF is not an emergency, medical or home-care service. In an emergency, call 911.
• Please make the area safe to work in, tell us about hazards (like a dog or ice from the roof) in your access notes, and cancel a request you no longer need.
• Volunteers are not paid by you. Please do not offer them money or gifts.
• Before staff can approve a household, and before anyone can request help for it, the person who adds the household signs the Get Help agreement in My TCHF. Family & friends you invite sign a short acknowledgement before their first request. Before and after photos of the cleared area are part of the service.
• Adding a home, or requesting help for someone else as Family & friends, needs a verified ID first (see "ID verification" below).

ID verification

• Before adding, joining or requesting something in My TCHF (a home, Family & friends, Donate Blood, a volunteer shift, or any future service), we ask you to confirm your identity with Stripe Identity, and to check it again every 2 years. It takes about 2 minutes. Stripe tells us only the result, your verified name, your date of birth, and whether the town on your ID matches the town you live in now. We never get your ID document, your photo or the address on your ID.
• People under 18 do not confirm their identity with Stripe. A minor's guardian confirms theirs instead, which covers the minor.
• In person, TCHF staff can confirm someone's identity by other means instead (for example a home visit); this is recorded and can be reviewed or revoked.
• Just browsing My TCHF does not need a verified identity.

Volunteering

• To volunteer with Shovel For Seniors, adults must confirm their identity with Stripe Identity (see "ID verification" above), provide a police record check, and sign the volunteer agreement. Volunteers under 18 need a verified parent or guardian's consent and co-signature instead of the ID and police checks.
• Volunteers aged 14 to 17 can take outdoor home jobs on their own, like adults, but only with a parent or legal guardian's consent and only in daylight. When they head out, the trip and about 30 minutes of work must end before sunset. They work outside only and never go inside a home. Their parent or legal guardian gets copies of their job messages and can pause them at any time, which also ends a shift that is running. Some programs are for adults only.
• Your police record check comes from the police service for the town you live in now, which can be different from your home area for volunteering. A police record check is valid for 3 years and your ID check for 2 years. We remind you before each one ends, and TCHF may pause your volunteering until it is renewed.
• The volunteer agreement is a separate document you sign in the app. It sets out the code of conduct, safety rules and risks of volunteering. If it and these terms disagree about volunteering, the volunteer agreement applies.
• Volunteering is unpaid. It does not make you an employee, contractor or agent of TCHF.
• TCHF decides who may volunteer. We may decline an application, or pause or end someone's volunteering at any time, for example if a check expires or for the safety of the people we serve.
• Follow the safety rules, work outside only, and stop any job that looks unsafe. You will never be blamed for stopping for safety.
• Record your hours honestly. Hours letters are based on what the app records.
• Location during shifts. If you allow it, My TCHF records your location at check-ins, and the phone app also records it regularly while an in-person shift is running, to keep you safe and confirm the service happened. Location is not needed to sign up or book shifts, and you can turn it off at any time. To mark Arrived and Done at a home, My TCHF asks for your location once to confirm you are at the address; if you seem far from the home's map pin, you can confirm you are there (TCHF staff see the difference), or your coordinator can confirm the step for you. Locations saved at check-ins (start shift, on my way, arrived, done and job photos) are kept with the service record as proof the visit or activity happened. The location recorded every few minutes during a shift is deleted after 90 days. See our Privacy Policy for details.

Donate Blood with TCHF

• Donate Blood with TCHF helps you join TCHF's team with Canadian Blood Services. You book and donate directly with Canadian Blood Services, under their rules and their privacy policy.
• Canadian Blood Services decides who can donate. TCHF does not give medical advice. Ask Canadian Blood Services about eligibility and your health.
• The bookings and donations you log in My TCHF are your own report. Please report honestly.

Donations

• You can donate on my.tchf.ca or in the app through a secure form run by Stripe. Stripe's terms and privacy policy also apply to your payment.
• The email Stripe sends you is a payment receipt. It is not an official receipt for income tax purposes unless TCHF issues one to you separately.
• If you made a mistake with a donation, email info@tchf.ca.

Support conversations

You can message TCHF in the app. Conversations with TCHF are only between you and TCHF, and replies come from "TCHF". When a volunteer takes a job at a home, the people who manage the home and that volunteer can also message each other about the visit. Keep those messages about the visit, be respectful, and do not share more personal information than needed. Either side can report a message to TCHF, and TCHF staff can read these messages to keep everyone safe and to handle complaints. Please do not send files unless we ask you to, and do not use messages for emergencies.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Harass, threaten, bully or discriminate against anyone, or send anything hateful, abusive or sexual.
• Give false information, pretend to be someone else, or request help for a person without their agreement.
• Try to see, change or collect other people's information, or get into parts of My TCHF you are not allowed to use.
• Copy or collect data from My TCHF with bots or scrapers, or overload, break or test the security of the service without our written permission.
• Upload viruses or harmful files, or anything that breaks the law or someone else's rights.
• Use My TCHF to sell things, advertise, or arrange paid work with people you meet through TCHF.

Photos and what you add to My TCHF

• You keep ownership of the photos, notes and messages you add.
• You give TCHF permission to store, copy, show and share them only as needed to run My TCHF and our programs — for example, showing job photos to the household and staff — as described in our Privacy Policy.
• We will not use your photos, name or story in publicity without asking you first.
• Only add photos you are allowed to take. Job photos should show the property, not people.
• When a volunteer adds a before or after job photo, TCHF also records where the photo was taken, to confirm the job was done at the right address. Only TCHF staff can see this, as described in our Privacy Policy.

Our rights

To keep people safe and the service working, TCHF may:

• Suspend, pause, limit or close an account, or remove content, if someone breaks these terms, the volunteer agreement or the law, or puts someone at risk.
• Change, pause or stop a service or feature, or open or close services in a city — for example between seasons.
• Keep records we need to keep, as explained in our Privacy Policy.

We will tell you when we can, unless doing so would put someone at risk or break the law. If you think we made a mistake, email info@tchf.ca.

Disclaimers

• TCHF is a charity that relies on volunteers. We provide My TCHF "as is" and cannot promise that it will always be available, error-free or able to meet every need.
• We check volunteers carefully, but no check can remove every risk.
• Weather, safety and volunteer availability can change plans at any time.

Limits on our responsibility

• To the extent Ontario law allows, TCHF, its directors, staff and volunteers are not responsible for indirect losses, or for losses caused by events we cannot reasonably control, such as severe weather or outages at our service providers.
• Nothing in these terms limits responsibility for death or injury caused by negligence where the law does not allow it, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or any other responsibility that cannot be limited by law.
• Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002 or other laws that cannot be waived, or protections the law gives people under 18.

If you misuse My TCHF

If you break these terms on purpose or misuse My TCHF, and someone makes a claim against TCHF because of it, you agree to cover TCHF's reasonable costs of that claim, to the extent the law allows. This does not apply to anything TCHF caused.

Privacy

Our Privacy Policy at my.tchf.ca/privacy explains what information we collect, why, who we share it with, and your rights. It is part of these terms.

Maps and place data

Address search and maps in My TCHF use free OpenStreetMap-based services: Nominatim and Photon for address lookup, and OpenFreeMap for map tiles. Map tiles and place data include OpenStreetMap contributions, shown with the map as © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). City and town names come from the GeoNames geographical database — Place names from GeoNames, licensed [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), [geonames.org](https://www.geonames.org/).

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as we add features or when the law changes. We will change the version and date at the top and bottom of this page. If a change is important, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect. If you keep using My TCHF after that, you accept the new terms. When a new version of these terms or the Privacy Policy changes what you agree to, My TCHF will ask you to read and accept it the next time you sign in. Small corrections (such as a typo) only change the version and date.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. Any dispute will be handled by the courts of Ontario, unless the law gives you the right to go elsewhere.

How to reach us

• Email: info@tchf.ca
• Mail: Trillium Community Help Foundation, 2030 Bristol Circle, Suite 210, Oakville, ON

Effective date and version

• Version 0.5
• Effective 7 October 2026
• Last updated 7 October 2026