Helping less fortunate integral part of plan for service-minded merchant

Feature story for The Commercial Appeal

Dec. 29, 2011

In 2005, with his wife pregnant with their first child, Mike Harvey felt the simultaneous tugging of fatherhood and entrepreneurism.

He stepped in that year to buy the assets of Babytime, a 40-year-old baby furniture store in Whitehaven. The business was solely an investment at the time, and Harvey, with a background in retail with Wal-Mart and in sales with the global pharmaceutical company Merck, hired someone to run the store. In January 2011, however, another urge tugging at his heart became too great to ignore and he left the corporate world to devote his days to Babytime and to another, higher calling.

“The reason I left Merck was less about the store and more about the ministry work,” Harvey said. “It’s about both, so I plan on spending 50 percent of my time here and 50 percent of my time doing some different ministry work. My belief is using the business as mission, local and international. We’re heavily involved in the community.”

Babytime, now headquartered on Trinity Road in Cordova, offers furniture for babies and new parents, bedding and children’s clothing. Classes and support groups in parenting and breastfeeding are offered as well … (read more)