Past Projects

In order to raise the last few hundred dollars towards a ShelterBox, our club organized a trivia night at our campus pub. It was a fun night, with a group from the Rotaract Club of Ottawa coming out to support our cause. Shout-out to Molly, Saul, Chantelle, and Kelty for their many painful hours creating trivia questions – it’s a lot harder than it looks!

Special thank you to Nabil Oudeh and the Centre For Conflict Resolution for sponsoring the $100 grand prize!

Do you want to know what’s exciting? Meeting a bunch of Rotaractors, you might not otherwise get to meet. The weekend of March 1-3, six of our members made their way to Montreal, Canada to meet up with about 40 other like-minded individuals from across the district.

District 7040 is a massive district, that encompasses upstate New York up to Nunavut; which means there are so many clubs and people out there to learn from. At the retreat this year, we met members from Kingston, Montreal and Plattsburgh!

The group listened to three exciting presentations from Martha Weaver (District Governor, District 7040), Lorenzo Dieff (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), and Nabil Oudeh (past District Governor, District 7040 & current Zone chair).

• Martha taught us about learning from our failures.

• Lorenzo taught us about effective altruism.

• Nabil taught us about knowing ourselves and different styles of conflict resolution.

After the speakers, we broke off into groups to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our respective clubs, and what we can do to further our club’s development.

One of the most exciting parts of the day was our president Riley and vice-president Molly being presented with the District’s Rotaract Leader of the Year Award. We are so incredibly lucky to have them as our club’s leaders, and we couldn’t think of anyone more deserving!

The rest of the weekend consisted of bonding with our fellow Rotaractors. We had a great time exploring Montreal, grabbing a bite to eat, and stumbling across an outdoor concert. This weekend was an incredible experience, and we look forward to participating in the Retreat next year!

On January 24th, we held our third annual Coffee House in support of ShelterBox. This event is held at Carleton University’s Roosters Cafe, and we invite local Ottawa entertainment groups to perform. This year, however, we did limit the acts to musical or dance routines – with local Ottawa band Children of Indigo performing at the event!

It’s a fun night, with entertainment, food, raffle prizes, trivia, and colouring contests.

ShelterBox Canada is a charitable organization independent of Rotary International that delivers emergency shelter and aid by providing boxes containing blankets, water purification, tool kits, cooking utensils, mosquito nets, and other valuable necessities. Through donations, they respond to global natural disasters and humanitarian crises and are typically one of the first organizations to respond.

Every year, we set up a ShelterBox, in order to let attendees see what their money is going to sponsor. We’ve found this to be much better stewardship than just showing photos or explaining what a ShelterBox is.

A single ShelterBox costs $1,200, with our Coffee House raising about $750. We will be holding another event within the next few weeks to raise the remaining funds, but we are very happy with the outcome of our event!

The Rotaract Club of Ottawa South is very thankful to our sponsors: the Mayfair Theatre, Mountain Goat Yoga, and FiitHouse.