Hundreds of alumni, students and staff gathered at Etobicoke’s Don Bosco Catholic Secondary school on Saturday to say goodbye to the institution, which will be closing for good at the end of this school year after nearly four decades.

“Everything I am now was molded in those five years of high school,” said Damir Stojic, 44, who flew in from Croatia to say goodbye to his former high school.

Stojic graduated in 1992, and became a priest about a decade later. He knows his old school has changed over the years, but remembers it as one that had “something special,” — something he attributes, in part, to a family-like atmosphere that was embraced by everyone there.

Eva Lerant (or Majer, as those she went to school with might remember her) graduated from Don Bosco in 1987. She’s spent the last few months busily leading the team that’s been organizing the school’s farewell bash.

“I don’t even know how to say this, this is not a typical school,” she said, describing how students there treated one another like family — peers like siblings, teachers like parents.

“This had to be done because we can’t let this be forgotten, and we know, take the building, fine, but you’re not taking away us — we’re still going to be here.”

Recent years have taken the school on a turbulent ride.

Don Bosco is now best known to much of the public as the place where former Toronto mayor, the late Rob Ford coached football for a decade — after self-starting the program there in the early 2000s — until he was dismissed from the job in 2013.

“I came here four years ago and have met nothing but good people and staff that cared for the kids, the kids that loved to be here,” said Don Bosco’s current principal, Mike Rossetti. “The perception isn’t the reality. And that’s unfortunate but as you know, perception often drives reality and that is the situation here right now.”

Rossetti, speaking at the event, called it “bittersweet” and said he hoped the farewell could be a positive celebration of the school’s legacy.

Callie Conforti, 17, is graduating from Don Bosco later this month. She remembers feeling heartbroken the night she found out that her high school, which had been struggling with low enrolment, would be closing for good this summer.

“It taught me the true meaning of family . . . It just taught me how to love things and just to be a positive person,” she said of Don Bosco. “And keep your mind open, and just put yourself out there, think outside the box, just be yourself and don’t worry about anything else.”

When she attends her convocation, Conforti, who helped organize the farewell, won’t be graduating alongside many of the students and friends she started high school with.

Due to Don Bosco’s low numbers, Conforti said many of her peers had to switch schools in order to access the courses they needed to graduate. She said that last semester she had between five and 18 people in her classes.

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Proceeds from ticket sales to Saturday’s farewell party helped fund a prom for the school’s last ever graduating class.

Once all costs from the farewell event have been covered, extra money raised will be donated to Volunteers International for Development Education and Solidarity, the organizers said.