CAMBRIDGE — Jacqueline Bayley doesn’t plan to mess with 180 years of history.

After two months as manager of the Cambridge Farmers’ Market, she’s amazed by the affection some customers show for the Saturday morning tradition at Ainslie and Dickson streets.

“Every weekend it shocks me when someone comes up and says they’ve shopped there for 40 years.”

So she’s treading carefully to make the market as popular with a new generation of city residents, most of who likely don’t know it exists. No big overhaul is planned, just more promotion, more food-related events and a push to partner with community groups.

“I don’t think anything needs to be fixed. If something’s been there 180 years, something is going right.”

Bayley is a Bramalea native who moved to Georgetown eight years ago to give her family a taste of small-town life. There, she was executive director of the town’s business improvement association.

She wasn’t looking for a job the first time she dropped by the Cambridge market. She was doing research for Farmers’ Markets Ontario. She found customer loyalty and history — especially the city’s steadfast support for the institution.

“They wanted to keep on and hold onto the tradition that was created in their town,” she said.

In 2010, Cambridge taxpayers are expected to give a $136,600 operating subsidy to keep the year-round Saturday markets open, along with running Wednesday markets from June through September. That’s more public help than most markets get, Bayley said. She sees no need to ask for any more money from city hall.

Even so, taxpayer support for the Cambridge market pales compared to Kitchener, where a $20- million market building was opened in 2004 and more than $600,000 a year is spent to keep it open.

A farmers’ market has been at Ainslie and Dickson streets since the 1820s — long before Canada became a nation. In 1856, Galt built a stone town hall — now Cambridge city hall — and the basement was used by the town’s butchers as the village meat market. In 1887, the town built the red-brick market building next door, which is still in use today.

In a world filled with monster supermarkets and Walmart selling groceries, Bayley sees a future for face-to-face small-talk about food.

A farmers’ market has always been about celebrating community pride and sharing a little gossip, she said. It’s also a place for talking to the neighbour who grew the food you’re going to eat.

That’s impossible in big stores, where tomatoes may come from Mexico, asparagus from Peru and apples from China.

“I think people are asking questions. Now people want to know where it grows,” Bayley said.

Her first changes to the market have been small ones for the 40 vendors inside and out. .

In June, she added a children’s play area. It’s not daycare, but it is a place where parents and tots can plant seeds in a pot or make a kite as part of a Saturday morning family shopping trip.

In July, it is health and wellness practitioners setting up displays, along with sales of smoothies made from strawberries on sale at the market from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays.

The annual Mill Race Folk festival takes over downtown on Civic Holiday weekend, so Bayley plans August as an arts-themed month at the market. For September, Bayley is inviting local restaurants to join in a month of local food promotion. October could become a harvest celebration.

Over the winter — when the market runs indoors — she’s thinking about an ongoing celebration of various year-end celebrations tied to food.

And she’s talking about some cross promotion with organizers of the Central Park community market that runs on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. through the summer.

In Orangeville, Bayley recruited local teens to work in promotions at the seasonal market she managed. She’s also planning to give high school students here the chance to work off their 40 community service hours needed to graduate.

It’s all about hooking young people and new residents on the market experience in a historic district. She’s already putting farmers’ market discount coupons in Welcome Wagon packages given to people when they move to town.

“I think there’s this whole generation that isn’t aware (of the market). It’s shocking,” she said.

“I think there are even people right within the neighbourhood who are new and don’t know.”