Another participant said:

I am so interested in my navigation that I have given up gym and basketball.

Some people said that the Centre had a "settling effect" on the men who went there. In other words, it kept them out of trouble. It kept them from thinking about being poor and unemployed. And it kept them too busy to think about committing crimes. You can see this "settling effect" idea in the record of what a policeman thought about the Centre.

An officer of the law is amazed with the difference in their behaviour. Speaking of two persons in particular, one who has been at the Lakeside [the jail] told him he has been attending the school and was going to do better and was determined never to have to go down there again. The other, whom they had a lot of trouble with, being very saucy and abusive, now greets the officers so differently, just like any ordinary citizen.

The St. John's Community Centre was in some ways like other projects set up for the unemployed. It had two goals: to keep the men out of trouble, and to find them something useful to do. We still have projects with these goals today. But today, people would be more likely to take computer training than shoe repair.

Credit: PANL, Brooks Album.

Fishermen spread split codfish to dry, Ferryland, 1938. Women often did this work too. Although many families caught and cured large amounts of fish during the 1930s, low fish prices or a bad season could push a family into deep poverty.