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Erna Wiens

Wiens, Erna (nee Janzen): Passed away on September 26, 2020 at Trinity Village Long Term Care in her 95th year. Beloved wife of the late Henry (1990). Loving mother of Louise (Ernie) Epp, Fred (Susan), Alan (Barbara), and Philip (Marian). Cherished Grandma of 11 grandchildren and Cherished Nana of 20 great-grandchildren. Dear sister of Lena, Elsa, Ed and Art (Darlene). Our Mother was born on August 27, 1926, here in Kitchener, in a small apartment on King Street which she pointed out every time we passed until it was torn down. She always said that she would never move away, and she never did. Erna was the third child born to Henry and Katharine (Andres) Janzen, but their first one born in Canada. She had two older brothers, Rudy (who died as an infant in the Ukraine), and another Rudy. Her parents immigrated to Canada in 1925 and had four more children after Erna, Walter, Lena, Elsa, Edward and Art. Erna was not certain where her name came from but was proud of the fact that there was an opera singer named Erna around that same time. As a child with six siblings, one of her main chores was to take apart hand-me-down clothes given to her family so that her mother could sew new outfits for them. She also learned to darn socks, and multiple generations have benefitted from her amazing sock darning skills! Erna attended Courtland Avenue and Suddaby school up until grade 8. In her report cards, it said her ‘work was good and she had the right attitude’. Her favourite subjects were art, spelling, and reading. She loved to play with her dolls and all her siblings. After grade 8 in June 1940 she was given a certificate that said she met all the requirements for admission to high school but only completed part of grade 9. When they informed her that she would have to repeat grade 9 math, she replied “See ya!”. Life was interesting being a Pastor's Kid. Her parents were always telling her to behave! One time Erna was caught standing on the dining room table spying on some youth dancing next door. She would not have been familiar with dancing until later in school when she participated in a square dancing lesson. She quite enjoyed it, but never told her parents. Erna always knew she was in trouble when her father called her 'Ernachin'. Erna gave her life to Jesus with her parent's guidance at the age of 15 and was later baptized by her own father at the Kitchener Mennonite Brethren Church. This was her family's church, and like the city she lived in, she never left it. Henry Wiens had eyes for Erna when they both attended youth group together. He thought she was beautiful and didn't waste much time before asking her out. They enjoyed skating in the winter and walking in the summer together. Erna's younger sisters, Lena and Elsa, were quite nosy of her relationship and spent much time spying on the two lovebirds. A skill they perhaps learned from Erna? Henry and Erna were later married on June 14, 1946 when Erna was 19 and Henry 23. Erna's father married them at KMB Church. Dad and mom were blessed with four children. Louise came home on their first wedding anniversary, followed by Fred, Alan and Philip. They believed in the importance of family and loved to travel together; visiting her brother Rudy and his wife Erica in B.C., Walter and his wife Edith in N.D., and Lena and her husband John in Detroit and N.M. When they became empty-nesters they enjoyed a Europe trip in 1975 with friends and her sister Elsa and husband Wilf as their tour guides. Florida was another favourite where they owned a condo for five years. Erna spent time serving at KMB Church in their Pioneer Girls program, complete in her sky blue suit. In the summer she served in the VBS program. When she was no longer able to serve in person, she spent many hours preparing materials for both church programs. She enjoyed singing in a Ladies’ Trio during the German service at KMB also. Later in life, Erna made somewhat of a name for herself at KMB Church when she started her own ministry as a ‘Phone Deaconess’ calling church members on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. At age 91 she retired from her 'Phone Deasoness' position and wrote a note in the KMB bulletin that said these conversations made her day and she would continue to keep her church family in her thoughts and prayers. A pastor of KMB once said of her, "You're upbeat and friendly and fill the loneliness of others.” Many memories were made when the families were together at Mom and Dad’s for dinner. Her famous chicken became famous more because of its frequency than anything else as she much preferred baking over cooking. She will always be remembered for her Zweibach, Paska, delicious chocolate cake with pudding filling and her most amazing Danish roll-ups filled with jam! Erna loved to care for all her grandchildren. She loved playing games and doing crafts with them. She loved to knit doll clothes for them. Henry had his first stroke in 1985, and several years later in 1988 they moved from their home to a condo called Eastwood Community. We celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary with a big celebration at KMB not knowing that Dad would pass away four years late in 1990 from a second stroke. Mom missed Dad terribly. She missed the little things like their Saturday afternoon trips to the donut shop. Erna continued the tradition at Tim Horton's for many years alone, often eating a muffin or donut for dinner, because as we all know, she had already had her main meal at noon! It wasn't long before her children and brother Ed soon joined her and when she could no longer get to Tim Horton's they all brought Tim Horton's to her. We celebrated Mom’s 70th birthday at Phil and Marian’s with a Wheel of Fortune theme where she won the game and a trip to Edmonton to see her sister Elsa! For Erna's 80th birthday we threw her a party at KMB with a Tim Horton’s theme complete with a tractor wheel painted like her favourite donut, a honey cruller, filled with Tim’s certificates! And for her 90th we had a celebration at Parkwood, complete with a cake Fred had her picture screened onto. In December 2009 mom had a heart attack which had to be repaired with surgery and a long recovery. She was nervous to live alone at this point and moved from Eastwood to Parkwood in 2010 where she lived for eight years, until her second stroke in September 2018 at which point she moved to Trinity Village. She loved to doodle, and at Trinity loved taking the art class called OMA! Journaling at the end of the day was also very healing for mom especially in her lonely times as a widow for over 30 years. She continued to play games by herself, especially Scrabble. She would play for Dad and always made sure he won! Mom considered it such a blessing to have her four children, eleven grandchildren, and twenty great-grandchildren very close by, in the city she said she would never leave. They will miss her dearly along with her 4 remaining siblings, Lena, Elsa, Ed and Art (Darlene). Erna's family will receive relatives and friends from 9:30 to 10:30am on Wednesday, September 30th, 2020 at the Henry Walser Funeral Home, 507 Frederick Street, Kitchener, 519-749-8467. Service will be held in the chapel at 11am. Private Family Interment at Woodland Cemetery. Those wishing to attend the visitation and service for Erna must RSVP and face masks are mandatory. For those unable to attend, Erna's service may be viewed via livestream at https://www.henrywalser.com/live-streaming As expressions of sympathy, donations to the Gideons International in Canada, MCC Disaster Relief or a charity of your choice would be appreciated by the family (cards available at the funeral home).

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What personal information does My Tribute Gift Foundation collect?

When you make a donation to a charity through one of MTGF's Memorial Pages, MTGF collects personal information directly from you in order to properly process your donation and be able to issue an official receipt for it, consistent with requirements of the CRA in Canada. MTGF also collects personal information from you in this manner to enable MTGF to contact you to confirm your donation and, in the case of a lost or missing receipt, to reissue you a receipt for your donation. This personal information consists of your name, address, phone number, email address, your credit card information, "acknowledgement" or "in memory of" information, recipient charity, your directions and notes to the recipient charity, and donation amount.

It is unlikely that MTGF will need to contact you, but we reserve the right in the event that we need to verify your personal information or to complete your donation. If you contact us by email or phone, we may ask you to verify your personal information so that we may respond to your inquiry. We may also collect personal information from emails, electronic messages and mail you send us, or from telephone conversations with you, for our use to complete your donation and to send you a receipt.

We collect credit card information from donors so that we can process donations. This information is maintained on a PCI-compliant and secure server that is managed by a third party contractor. We also use a credit card processing company to process donations. Where we transfer personal information to a third party contractor to handle or process on our behalf, we ensure the third party agrees to use such information solely as necessary to provide the services to us, and that the third party otherwise handles and safeguards such personal information in a manner that is compliant with this policy and the laws and regulations that apply to MTGF for the protection of personal information.

Sometimes our collection of personal information from you may happen automatically. We may use tracking technologies such as cookies, log files, and pixel tags to automatically collect information when users visit one of our Sites. Information we collect in this manner includes, but may not be limited to:

IP address to measure our website traffic and to help provide a more personalized experience;
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We use this information to to improve our service offerings and to customize your experience using our Sites. For more information, see the “Cookies and Similar Technologies” section below.

How does MTGF Use Your Personal Information?

As explained above, MTGF uses your personal information to process your donation, issue an official receipt for it, and to contact you if necessary for those purposes. MTGF may also use your personal information to provide you with services and support, personalize user experiences on our Sites, perform analytics and system improvement, and compliance with our legal obligations.

MTGF does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes without your express consent.

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We may use cookies, pixel tags, and similar technologies to gather information about your use of our Sites to improve our service offerings and to customize your experience using our Sites.

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Protecting personal information.

MTGF protects the personal information it collects using physical, technical and administrative safeguards that are suitable given the sensitivity of the information. These safeguards help protect the personal information against loss or theft, unauthorized access, use, copying, disclosure and modification. When a donor is asked to enter personal information (such as contact information, address and credit card number) on one of our online forms, that information is encrypted and is protected using secure sockets layer (SSL) digital certificates. While on a secure page the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Firefox, becomes locked.

Only MTGF employees who need the information to perform a specific task are granted access to personally identifiable information. All MTGF employees are apprised of and agree to adhere to MTGF’s security and privacy practices.

Does MTGF Disclose Personal Information?

With your express consent, MTGF may disclose your name, contact information, "acknowledgement" or "in memory of" information, notes and directions and the amount you donated to your charity of choice, the funeral home and the deceased next-of-kin.

MTGF may disclose personal information when required by law, the CRA or other governmental authority, or if requested by a credit card issuer in case of a dispute.

In working with our service providers, your personal information may be accessible in, or transferred to, a foreign jurisdiction. Such information may be provided to law enforcement or national security authorities of that jurisdiction in order to comply with foreign laws.

Accuracy of Personal Information

We take reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we collect is accurate, complete and current as required for the purposes for which the information is collected. You have the right to view and update your personal information or ask us to delete it at any time. Simply send your detailed request to us using our contact information provided below.

Retention of Personal Information

We retain personal information only as long as it is required for the reasons it was collected for. The length of time we retain information varies, depending on the purpose and the nature of the information. When your personal information is no longer required for these purposes, the information is either physically destroyed or deleted.

Children

We do not knowingly collect personal information about individuals under the age of consent in their jurisdiction of residence without the consent of their parent or guardian. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from such an individual without the consent of his or her parent or guardian, we will reasonable efforts to enable us to promptly delete such information from our database.

For EU Residents

The vast majority of our donors are Canadians. However, while we do not target our services to individuals outside of Canada, some of our individual donors may be residents of the European Economic Area (“EEA”). For the benefit of such users, we handle their personal data in accordance with applicable EU data protection laws and regulations, including the EU GDPR. Subject to certain exemptions set out in the GDPR, you have the following rights in relation to the Personal information we hold about you:

The right to access and inspect your personal information or to be provided with a permanent copy of the information being held about you;
The right to request the correction of any inaccuracies in your personal information or where the accuracy of information is disputed, to add additional information to give notice that you dispute the accuracy of the information content;
The right to request the erasure of your personal information, particularly where the continued processing of the information is no longer necessary;
The right to object to the processing of your personal information, particularly where there are no longer sufficient legitimate grounds for us to continue processing the information;
The right to restrict processing, data portability and the right to appeal any automated decision making or profiling; and
The right to complain to a Data Protection Regulator about our processing of your personal information.

If you are a resident of the EEA, our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this privacy policy will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.

However, we will normally collect personal information from you where the processing is in our legitimate commercial interests which are not overridden by your protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. Typically, our legitimate interests include: providing our services, facilitating our security safeguards, and defending legal claims.

If you use our services, we may need your personal information to perform a contract with you. In some limited cases, we may be under a legal obligation to collect, use or disclose your personal information, such as disclosure required by court order.

Where we rely specifically on express consent to collect and process your personal information, you are not obliged to provide your consent and you may subsequently withdraw your consent once it has been provided. It should be noted however that this may limit your experience with our resources and services.

If you have any questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us at the address provided below.

Withdrawing Your Consent

You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information at any time. Simply contact us as set out below with your request.

Changes to our Privacy Policy:

MTGF reserves the right to change its Privacy Policy and, in the event, will post those changes so that donors are always aware of what information we collect, how we collect, use and safeguard it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. Please check this web page regularly to ensure you are aware of our current Privacy Policy. Your continued use of one of our Sites or your continued provision of your personal information to us by any means whatsoever constitutes your agreement to our then-current Privacy Policy.

Contacting MTGF:

MTGF works hard to ensure that your giving experience is a positive one. If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of MTGF, or your dealings with our Websites, please contact:

My Tribute Gift Foundation
info@mytributegift.org
Telephone: 1-855-355-8141
Privacy Policy as of May 2023.

The My Tribute Gift Foundation (MTGF) is committed to preserving your privacy and maintaining the accuracy, confidentiality and security of your credit card and other personal information. This privacy policy describes the personal information MTGF collects by any means, including but not limited to our My Tribute Gift Memorial donor's portal pages and our website at https://mytributegift.org/privacy.html (each a “Site” and collectively the "Sites"), how we collect, use and safeguard that information, and the circumstances under which we may disclose it. By using one of our sites or otherwise providing your personal information to us, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

What is personal information?

What personal information does My Tribute Gift Foundation collect?

When you make a donation to a charity through one of MTGF's Memorial Pages, MTGF collects personal information directly from you in order to properly process your donation and be able to issue an official receipt for it, consistent with requirements of the IRS in the U.S.. MTGF also collects personal information from you in this manner to enable MTGF to contact you to confirm your donation and, in the case of a lost or missing receipt, to reissue you a receipt for your donation. This personal information consists of your name, address, phone number, email address, your credit card information, "acknowledgement" or "in memory of" information, recipient charity, your directions and notes to the recipient charity, and donation amount.

IP address to measure our website traffic and to help provide a more personalized experience;
Information regarding your browser and other technical specifications required to use our Sites;
Your transaction history relating to the use of our services;
Computer data or files, often called “cookies,” which may be sent by your web browser and stored on an individual computer to allow our server to “recognize” you through the navigation of our Sites; and
Computer data files, often called “web beacons” that are collected from emails or links on third-party sites that allow our server to evaluate the popularity of those links or the information contained in emails or on third-party sites.

We use this information to improve our service offerings and to customize your experience using our Sites. For more information, see the “Cookies and Similar Technologies” section below.

How does MTGF Use Your Personal Information?

MTGF does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes without your express consent.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

We may use cookies, pixel tags, and similar technologies to gather information about your use of our Sites to improve our service offerings and to customize your experience using our Sites.

Cookies

Session cookies
Session cookies are stored on the user’s hard drive temporarily and are deleted when the user ends the browsing session. Session cookies are useful for things like keeping items in a shopping cart while the user continues to browse.
Persistent cookies
Persistent cookies stay on the user’s hard drive until they expire, even after the browser is closed. Persistent cookies are useful for remembering things like login information, so users do not have to enter their password every time they visit the Site.

Clear GIFs

Protecting personal information.

Does MTGF Disclose Personal Information?

MTGF may disclose personal information when required by law, the IRS or other governmental authority, or if requested by a credit card issuer in case of a dispute.

Accuracy of Personal Information

Retention of Personal Information

Children

For EU Residents

The vast majority of our donors are Americans. However, while we do not target our services to individuals outside of the United States, some of our individual donors may be residents of the European Economic Area (“EEA”). For the benefit of such users, we handle their personal data in accordance with applicable EU data protection laws and regulations, including the EU GDPR. Subject to certain exemptions set out in the GDPR, you have the following rights in relation to the Personal information we hold about you:

The right to access and inspect your personal information or to be provided with a permanent copy of the information being held about you;
The right to request the correction of any inaccuracies in your personal information or where the accuracy of information is disputed, to add additional information to give notice that you dispute the accuracy of the information content;
The right to request the erasure of your personal information, particularly where the continued processing of the information is no longer necessary;
The right to object to the processing of your personal information, particularly where there are no longer sufficient legitimate grounds for us to continue processing the information;
The right to restrict processing, data portability and the right to appeal any automated decision making or profiling; and
The right to complain to a Data Protection Regulator about our processing of your personal information.

It is important to note that the rights set out above are not unconditional and the specific circumstances of the processing being undertaken by us will determine if these rights may be exercised. Further information concerning these rights and their application can be obtained by residents of the EEA by contacting us at the address provided below.
If you are a resident of the EEA, our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this privacy policy will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.

If you have any questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us at the address provided below.

Withdrawing Your Consent

You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information at any time. Simply contact us as set out below with your request.

For California Residents: Your California Privacy Rights

Access and Correction Rights

California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits users that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us via the contact information provided below.

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Changes to our Privacy Policy:

Contacting MTGF:

MyTributeGift Foundation
info@mytributegift.org
Telephone: 1-855-355-8141
Privacy Policy as of May 2023.

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What is personal information?

What personal information does My Tribute Gift Foundation collect?

How does MTGF Use Your Personal Information?

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Protecting personal information.

Does MTGF Disclose Personal Information?

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