ROTEL was a project of the South Ottawa Rotary Club. The most important project by the club was and is ROTEL. The project was launched in 1983 by the South Ottawa Rotary Club who recognized that with the development of the Ottawa Hospital complex, patients who ended up in the hospitals there could well feel isolated. There was nowhere close by where their relatives and friends could stay if they w
anted to visit them. Essentially these patients would feel isolated, therefore, the South Ottawa rotary Club decided to build a low cost motel to solve this problem. When completed the cost was approximately $2,000,000, raised by Rotary Clubs in Ontario, Quebec & norther New York with supplementary funding from groups like the Rotary Canadian Legion and Canada's Armed Forces. The name is from Rotary & Motel and "ROTEL" was opened in July of 1986. It is to be noted that the mortgage that had been in place was completed in 1993 thanks to all those groups who assisted the club & also, that South Ottawa Rotary Club paid all expenses that occurred during the fund raising, thus allowing all donations received to go directly to the project. People who may stay at ROTEL are those who are receiving treatment or assessment on an outpatient basis or are family members of someone being treated at one of the Ottawa hospitals & those hospitals cover a wide range of health care institutions in the national capital region. Improvements are being made to the premises on a regular basis. ROTEL is strictly non-profit. The Board of Directors consists entirely of volunteers. The nightly rate is applied to staffing, ongoing operating costs, repairs & some to a capital fund to cover the eventuality of major repairs or additions. The Board's policy has been to keep rates down so that there is as little financial burden as possible on those people who must stay for several nights. ROTEL is a project that all Rotarians can be proud of, and it is also a community venture that meets the Rotary motto - "Service Above Self"
