The Harris family’s philanthropy began, as Jim Harris tells it, around a dining room table.
“In the early days, my family had very little to give, but they always tried,” says Jim Harris, a trustee of the Robert & Shirley Harris Family Foundation and grandson of James Harris, who attended Cal Poly Humboldt from 1935 to 1938, and Virginia Torp Harris (‘38, Physical Education). “They’d ask, ‘Who do we help this year?’ It’s grown a lot since then, but the spirit is the same—level the playing field.”
That spirit now extends all the way to Cal Poly Humboldt, where the Robert and Shirley Harris Family Foundation has been a steady and thoughtful presence for years.
Two gifts, in particular, are shaping student lives: the Virginia Torp Harris Memorial Scholarship Endowment, which supports students in Music and Kinesiology and receives ongoing annual funding, and the recently created Robert and Shirley Harris Family Award Endowment, launched last year with a $200,000 gift to expand hands-on training for students in health-care tracks.
Both funds carry the imprint of a family whose connection to Humboldt is personal and generational. Virginia Torp Harris met her future husband, James Harris, on campus in the 1930s. According to family lore, a friend asked James Harris to “look after Virginia” while he was away; he did, and a few years later, they married.[
James Harris was at Humboldt on a football scholarship at a time when a nickel could buy dinner, and opportunity could change a life. He would later work his way up from truck driver to vice president of West Coast Transportation at Standard Oil, a 33-year arc that reflected discipline, optimism, and grit—traits he passed down generously.
“My grandfather spoiled us with time,” Jim Harris says. “He’d sit for hours, listening, asking questions, nudging us on math, on financial literacy, on life. He cared that we learned how to make good decisions.”
Virginia Harris brought warmth and a love of movement and music to the family. A petite, adventurous soul—Jim Harris still keeps her bright yellow 1983 Suzuki scooter running in her honor—she studied Physical Education at Humboldt and played violin. “She really loved music,” Jim Harris says. “It sticks with us that when budgets get tight, arts and humanities are the first to go. Supporting music and kinesiology in her name just feels right.”
After Virginia Harris’s passing in the early 1990s, the family established the memorial scholarship to keep her name—and her values—alive on the campus where her story began. Every year, student thank-you notes arrive. “We pass them around the family,” Jim Harris says. “It gives us chills, honestly. Those letters connect us to my grandparents, to Humboldt, and to our mission.”
The mission widened further through the foundation started by James’s brother and sister-in-law, Robert and Shirley Harris, in the 1980s, a kitchen-table effort that matured into a professional philanthropy guided by impact and careful research. Education sits at the top of their philanthropic priorities, along with healthcare, food security, and environmental stewardship. The family gives to junior colleges, the University of California, and the California State University system, including Humboldt.
“We’re not chasing prestige,” Jim Harris says. “We’re backing people.”
That focus on people is clear in the foundation’s second Humboldt fund: the Robert and Shirley Harris Family Award Endowment, which supports hands-on training for students headed into healthcare. For Jim Harris—who leads engineering teams that design and deploy hospital infrastructure for one of California's oldest health care systems—and for a family with nurses and clinicians across generations, the support feels deeply aligned.
“Training is high-leverage,” Jim Harris says. “Building a clinic or a hospital takes enormous capital. But if we can help students get the real-world experience they need, especially in rural areas, that moves the needle.”
It’s a practical, generous answer to a real regional challenge. The endowment’s focus on experiential learning helps students enter the field prepared for the realities of rural healthcare, whether that’s logging clinical hours, learning to serve in small clinics, or working across disciplines to meet community needs.
The family’s giving has always had this boots-on-the-ground quality. When devastating wildfires swept through Santa Rosa, they directed support to the local food bank and to organizations caring for first responders. For decades, Robert Harris ran a hillside orchard, harvesting and donating fruit to feed neighbors. The Robert & Shirley Harris Family Foundation also supports the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. A family legend recounts a shipping container with 700 wheelchairs bound for Ecuador. Abroad or at home, the test is the same: Will this invest in people and widen the path?
At Humboldt, the answer is yes. The University’s students reflect the very communities the Foundation wants to uplift—first-generation scholars, working parents finishing degrees, and students who choose service professions.
“Humboldt educates people who help their communities,” Jim Harris says. “That’s our north star.”
By any measure, the Foundation’s reach has expanded: in a recent year, it gave approximately $2.2 million across various causes. Yet the Harris approach still feels like it could fit around a table—thoughtful, personal, and grounded. Ask Jim Harris how he carries his grandparents’ legacy forward, and he returns to the basics: time, attention, and access.
“It’s an honor to help,” Jim Harris says. “If we can open a door for someone who never thought they had a shot at a master’s degree, at a clinical career, at making ends meet—that’s everything.”
At Cal Poly Humboldt, those doors open in practice rooms and kinesiology labs, in clinics and community health centers, across the North Coast and beyond.
To honor your family’s inspiring legacy of determination, similar to the Harris family, consider establishing an endowment by calling (707) 826-5200 or emailing giving@humboldt.edu.