Robert Harlan
Written by Bernice Woo
“TIRELESS GRANDFATHER HELPS HIS COMMUNITY“. This is the title of a high school essay written by a grandson several years ago and chosen as the winning essay based on the theme: “Senior Citizens Who Make a Difference.”
The essay was about Robert Harlan, who is the youngest of eleven children and born in a small town in Nebraska 76 years ago. He moved to California in his teens and worked in the shipyards after high school. He joined the Navy during World War II and after the war moved back to Nebraska and became involved in the bakery business and got married. Eventually, Robert and his wife Arlene — “Butch” as he likes to call her - and their four children moved to North Highlands, Sacramento. Robert returned to the bakery business and retired from Wonder Bread after 28 years.
Retirement to Robert meant time to get involved with his community of North Highlands. So when the Northwest District Sheriff’s Center opened its doors in 1993, he immediately volunteered to help. There he does paperwork for the patrolmen, writes reports, helps with the Christmas Toy and Food Drive, and goes out on patrol with another volunteer. On patrol he and his partner cover the Northwest County doing vacation home checks, driving by schools to notice anything unusual, helping search for anyone reported missing, do stakeouts to watch for illegal dumping, and even late night curfew checks looking for juveniles under 18 who are out after 10:00 PM.
Robert also volunteers two days a week at Kaiser Pt. West taking blood pressure readings and helping with the blood drive at Kaiser North. He has donated over 30 gallons of blood himself and received several plaques and other awards from Blood Source.
As a member of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) Robert consistently reports over 1000 hours of volunteer time every year and long ago surpassed the challenge of the President of the United States to put in 4000 hours of volunteer time during a lifetime.