Pantry Commons (“Pantry Commons,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your
privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and protect it, and the choices you have,
when you use our website and our SMS text-messaging services.
1. Information We Collect
- Contact information you provide, such as your name, mobile phone number, email address, and mailing address.
- Service information you provide to receive pantry services, such as household members and eligibility details entered during registration or intake.
- Volunteer information you provide when you sign up to volunteer, such as the days and times you are available and the shifts you take.
- Usage and device information that is collected automatically when you visit our website, such as log data, browser type, and general device information.
We collect this information when you register, verify your phone number, request or place an order, sign up to volunteer, or otherwise contact or use the service.
2. How We Use Your Information
- To operate and provide the service, including account creation, phone verification, appointments, order or pickup coordination, and volunteer scheduling.
- To send you text messages you have opted into — for a guest, one-time verification codes, appointment and pickup reminders, order updates, and occasional service announcements; for a volunteer, shift reminders, schedule changes, and requests to fill open shifts.
- To respond to your questions and provide customer support.
- To maintain the security of the service and to comply with our legal and recordkeeping obligations.
3. SMS / Text Messaging and Your Mobile Information
With your consent, we send SMS text messages to the mobile number you provide. If you are a guest of a pantry, these
may include one-time verification codes, appointment and pickup reminders, order updates, and occasional service
announcements. If you sign up to volunteer, they are about volunteer shifts — shift reminders, schedule changes,
and requests to fill open shifts.
These are two separate consents, collected on two separate forms, and we keep them separately. Opting
in as a guest does not opt you in as a volunteer, or the other way round, and neither one is required — not to
receive food, and not to volunteer.
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.
Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties.
Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. You can opt out of text messages at any time by replying
STOP, and you can reply HELP for assistance. STOP applies to your
phone number, so it stops every kind of message we send to it — and because every pantry that uses Pantry
Commons texts you from the same number, it stops texts from all of them, not only the pantry that texted you. To
stop only volunteer shift texts, use the setting on your pantry’s volunteer page instead.
4. Messages to a Pantry
A pantry can use Pantry Commons to read and answer the messages people send it, on its Facebook Page or through a message box on its website. When a pantry does:
- What we store. The words of each message, when it was sent, and the replies sent back. For a Facebook message, the name Facebook gives us for the sender. For a website message, the name and email address the person typed.
- Who can see it. The pantry’s staff and any volunteers it gives access to. Pantry Commons staff can also see messages, to support the product, and each time they do it is logged.
- Draft replies. To draft a reply for a person at the pantry, we send the message and the pantry’s own details, such as its hours, to OpenAI, our AI service provider. OpenAI does not use them to train its models, and may keep them for up to 30 days to monitor for abuse.
- Replies by email. A reply to a website message goes by email through our email provider, and an answer to that email comes back the same way. Our email provider keeps those emails for up to 30 days. Nothing we delete shortens that.
- How long we keep it. Messages are deleted 12 months after they were sent, or after a different length of time the pantry sets. Draft replies are deleted after 30 days.
- Facebook’s copy. Facebook keeps its own copy of every message sent on Facebook under its own privacy policy. Nothing we delete removes that copy.
- What we do not do. We do not use these messages for advertising, and they are not used to decide whether someone can receive food.
- Deleting a conversation. On Facebook, send the pantry’s Page the words delete my data. If you wrote on a website, reply to the pantry’s email with those words. Or write to us. See Delete my data.
5. How We Share Information
We do not sell your personal information. Subject to the exclusion stated below, we share information only in these limited situations:
- With service providers who help us operate the service (for example, our website hosting provider), under agreements that limit their use of the information to providing services to us;
- With Google, when an organization creates a Pantry Commons account after clicking one of our Google ads. We send Google that ad’s click identifier and the time the account was created, so we can tell which ads work. We send nothing else, and never anything about the people a pantry serves;
- When required by law, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our users or others.
The categories above exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent. That information is
not shared with any third parties. As stated in Section 3, no mobile information is shared with third parties or
affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Delivering a message you asked us to send — transmitting it
over the mobile network through our messaging provider — is how the service works at your request, not a
disclosure of your opt-in or consent data for anyone else’s use.
6. Data Retention
We retain personal information for as long as needed to provide the service and to meet our legal and recordkeeping obligations, after which we delete or de-identify it.
7. Your Choices
- Text messages: reply STOP at any time to opt out of all of them, from every pantry that uses Pantry Commons; reply HELP for help. To stop only volunteer shift texts, use the setting on your pantry’s volunteer page.
- Your information: you may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information by contacting us using the details below.
8. Data Security
We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards designed to protect your information. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
9. Children’s Privacy
The service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, please contact us and we will delete it.
10. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the effective date above and post the updated policy at this URL.
11. Who We Are and How to Contact Us
This service is operated by Pantry Commons, software that food pantries and community
organizations use to manage pantry access, appointments, orders, and notifications for the people they serve.
Text messages sent through the service are sent by Pantry Commons on behalf of the participating
organization you registered with.
Pantry Commons is a service of Pantry Commons, LLC. Village Commons is a brand of Pantry Commons, LLC.
Pantry Commons, LLC
Paul Augros
780 County Road 330
Granger, TX 76530
United States
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your information, contact us at
paul.augros@gmail.com, or write to us at the address above.