Babytime is about more than business for owner Mike Harvey. He’s a man on a mission, literally.

The company’s mission statement includes making the world a better place. That means offering products from companies that are socially and environmentally conscious. He also carries artwork from local artists he’s assisted and from artists he’s met on trips to Columbia.

It’s a big part of why Harvey said he bought Babytime in the first place – running the store allows him to spend 50 percent of his time doing mission work, his true passion.

“The purpose was not as much business to me as personal, just doing what I felt God called me to do,” he said of his decision to leave a job with a pharmaceutical company to buy Babytime in 2005.

A portion of store sales supports orphanages in Latin America, through a partnership with the Cordova-based Orphanos foundation. Harvey is leading a team of five fathers and their children to Colombia in March to connect kids in the United States with orphans in Latin America.

In Memphis, Babytime has partnered with families and organizations to supply nursery makeovers to deserving families each year. The next nursery makeover in Memphis is set for this spring.