COURTESY PLAYTIME EDVENTURES

Charlotte entrepreneur Kevin Gatlin has partnered with Levine Children's Hospital to supply 150 Playtime Bed Sheets, interactive linens for kids to learn and play.

Being stuck in bed doesn’t have to be unbearable.

As Childhood Cancer Awareness Month winds down, Playtime Edventures founder Kevin Gatlin engaged in his first large-scale partnership with Levine Children’s Hospital to provide 150 Playtime Bed Sheets. These aren’t any old sheets. The interactive linens allow children to learn and play without disrupting their hospital stay.

“I went to the hospital to visit a friend whose son was in the hospital, and then I noticed that they were playing checkers on the bed,” Gatlin said. “Didn’t think much about it, but when I left the hospital I was reminiscing on what if my wife and I were in that same situation. What could we do to keep our son engaged so that he wouldn’t get depressed or zone out? That’s when the idea actually popped in my head.”

Accustomed to seeing his wife, Diedra, playing with their son Blair (who is now 13 years old) on his bed, Gatlin took the idea of extending the playroom and ran with it.

“My wife utilizes the bed in our son [Kamren’s] room to play board games and do his homework,” Gatlin said. “It extended the play area. It also made it easier to get him to go to bed, as he was already in his bed.”

Gatlin founded Playtime Edventures in 2013.

“I went home and drew it out, and I showed my mom—she’s a retired school teacher,” Gatlin said. “The first thing she said was ‘that’s a great idea. I see that you have games on the bed, but you need to have some educational components on it as well.’ She introduced me to some teachers. We brought on a psychiatrist, and it took us about two years, but now we have bed sheets for kids where they can play, learn and sleep.”

When a parent takes a child to the hospital, a sense of protection in an unfamiliar environment often ensues. Gatlin hopes his creation provides a sense of comfort during a time of stress.

“It’s our job as parents to protect our kids, and to somehow bring some normal way of life, even in situations such as being stuck in the hospital,” he said. “You can’t bring a lot of toys into the hospital, and a lot of the kids can’t get out of bed, because they may have some tubes connected to them, but we can turn the bed into a playground. Parents can spontaneously play games like tic-tac-toe and checkers. They have memory games on them.

“We have pictures where the nurses and the doctors can use the bed sheets as a way to talk with the child as they take their different measurements. They do a lot, and they bring some type of normalcy to this plain white room. The only thing a child has to do is to watch TV. You can only watch but so much TV. The bed sheets offer a distraction.”

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