Trash & Treasure Market

Trash & Treasure Market has traded in the Jamison Centre car park every Sunday since September 1974, established by the Rotary Club of Canberra-Belconnen just three years after the club itself was chartered with 20 members in February 1971. Half a century later, it's become one of Canberra's most enduring weekly institutions, still run entirely by the same volunteer organisation that founded it.

Fifty years, five million dollars, one Rotary club

That half-century of Sunday mornings has translated into genuinely substantial community giving: well over $5 million raised to date, funding both domestic and international Rotary service projects. Ron Morrison, one of the club's original charter members back in 1971, is credited as the father of the market, a title that speaks to just how long this particular corner of Macquarie has been raising money for causes far beyond Canberra itself.

Reviewers consistently praise the fresh fruit and vegetable stalls alongside genuine bargain-hunting through secondhand goods, with plant bargains a specific highlight for regulars, and a gold coin donation entry that reviewers note goes straight back into Rotary's community work.

Good to know before you go

A gold coin donation covers entry, a small ask given the market's decades of fundraising track record. Some long-time visitors note the market feels smaller than in past years, worth keeping expectations realistic if it's been a while between visits.