Philatelic Garbology raises $67,000 for EndTrachoma Projects

Collecting Used Stamps has raised over $67,000 for EndTrachoma and a total of over $150,000 since 1992.

The founder of 'Philatelic Garbology', Carrol Farmer, passed away peacefully on 4th April 2025

Carrol Farmer, first female president of Rotary Bayswater North started collecting Used Stamps back in 1992.

Since 2019, Camille Rogers, a member of Rotary Glen Waverley took the lead role after the passing of Carrol's husband, PDG Eric. Camille now spends much of her spare time trimming stamps to raise funds to help the eradication of trachoma.

Stamps arrive at Camille’s shop ‘Sacred Source’ in Glenferrie Road, Malvern from all over Australia. There are collections and albums from deceased estates, envelopes from hospitals, schools, councils, and many other businesses that take the time to rip the stamps from the envelopes and send them to Camille for trimming, sorting, and selling.

On behalf of Carrol and Camille, a big thank you to all the members, friends, clubs, and organisations from across Australia and overseas that have contributed stamps and helped Used Stamps to make a difference.

If you have used stamps that you would like to contribute, you can send them to: Camille Rogers, c/- Sacred Source, 245A Glenferrie Road, Malvern. Vic. 3144 prior to 30 June 2025.

In May 2024, this wonderful fundraiser made its way into RDU.

PUTTING A STAMP ON HUMANITARIAN CAUSES

Used Stamps raise $150,000 for various humanitarian projects including EndTrachoma.

The first woman President of the Rotary Club of Bayswater North, Carrol Farmer, had a club-changing idea in 1992. At the time, the club was broke and her son’s school was raising good money from selling postage stamps on a stall. In their first month, they were surprised to raise $400 from the sale of their first collection. Email communication was not widely used in the early 90’s and people were still largely using regular postage. Carrol saw this as a possible opportunity for fundraising and so the Philatelic Garbology project was born, and across the last 32 years, over $150,000 has been raised.

In those days, one of the main sources of stamps were envelopes left over from competitions- these were vigorously followed up. The Age ran a hugely popular competition one year that required six mast-heads to be placed into an envelope. The lucky winner would receive a car. Fuelled by her entrepreneurial spirit, Carrol contacted The Age and got her company’s truck driver to swing by The Age building and pick up the competition envelopes. To her amazement 72 large mailbags arrived – a huge amount, and one not really relished by the Club who had volunteered to tear off the stamps! Carrol and her husband Eric (Past District Governor) only had a small factory at the time so storing them was a challenge too, and club members didn’t want to take home a large mailbag each either – a large mistake. It took six long months of painstaking work, over several gin and tonics, for Carrol and Eric to extract the used stamps, with the help of the Club. One other bad mistake was made with a request from the ETA Margarine competition – the smell of “eau-de blue-cheese” from the elderly unwashed margarine papers permeated the home for some time!

Each stamp had to be torn from the envelope and then sorted into various categories according to value, events, and nations. Various local stamp dealers were then approached to establish the best prices. One dealer offered $28.00 per kilo of trimmed stamps – a good price at that time. Thus encouraged, stamp nights became a regular Club feature.

By chance, stamps made their way to Carrol from all kinds of places. Carrol and Eric took part in a Rotary Exchange program in the early 90's where they stayed with Rotarians across Canada. This helped spread the word of the philatelic fund-raising and generated further welcome supplies. They also hosted Rotarians from overseas whilst they attended the Convention in Melbourne (and just happened to mention the stamp program!) During interstate travels, make-ups were an important part of Rotary and Carrol never missed a chance to talk to Clubs and encourage their support. She always stressed that it was so much easier to ask for rubbish than dollars! Rotary Belmont in NSW still sends stamps today, as does Rotary Mount Gambier and the Rotary Noorlunga in S.A. And good friends in Winnipeg continue to send over a collection of stamps from their Club a few times a year.

Vision Australia was eager to assist once they heard that we supported the Fred Hollows Foundation through Rotary and, surprisingly, when a staff member re-located to W.A. we began to receive stamps on a regular basis from the Department of Dental Health in Perth.

All the money raised went to projects such as Perkins Brailler for a blind child, purchasing a Lycra suit for a child with cerebral palsy, the End Polio project, a mine detector for Cambodia, the Sight for Sore Eyes program in Nepal, the Fred Hollows Foundation, an adult migrant literacy programme, Rotarians Against Malaria, Wheelchairs for Kids, Plumpy Nuts for Darfur, Bio Sand Filters, Cathy Freeman Foundation for Indigenous Youth, water pumps for Moradabad Village, India,  Koorie Academy and ROMAC. However, for the past six years, all the funds have been dedicated to the EndTrachoma project.

The money raised for EndTrachoma has paid for a $48,000 mobile washer-dryer laundry trailer donated for use in trachoma-affected communities in Western Australia. The trailer travels between communities where trachoma and other hygiene-related diseases are prevalent to help address health hardware issues along with good hygiene practices.  They fix sinks, toilets, leaky pipes, shower heads, and other plumbing issues to minimise the spread of this horrible disease. The trailer contains two washer-dryers, a wash basin, 1000 litre water tank, BBQ, a generator, a bouncing castle, and a tool kit for basic home repairs.

Who would have imagined that from such humble beginnings, this little project of rubbish collection could be still operating 32 years later.