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Backlash over viral photo inspires 'Doll Kind'

Posted at 5:31 PM, May 03, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-03 19:57:36-04

Take a look at this picture! A little girl -- completely covered in paint! 

Denver7 first showed you this photo last year and it went viral.

But Denver7’s Kristen Skovira shows us how some people's negative reaction to it turned a messy moment into a growing local business.

Victoria Farmer is a mom with her hands full.

Last summer, while feeding her baby boy Maddox, Farmer’s two-year-old daughter Anistyn made a break for it.

“Like most 2-years-olds. She was running around,” said Farmer.

Anistyn found the bucket of white paint and quickly went to work.

"I set [Maddox] down and I went down the stairs. [Anistyn] was covered in paint,” said Farmer.

Farmer snapped a picture and posted it to Facebook.

"It'll be pretty funny, people will get a kick out of it,” she said.

Instead, the online backlash was swift and unexpected.

"The last thing anyone wants to hear about themselves, is to hear that they're a horrible parent, that their child should be taken from them. All kinds of craziness,” she said.

But it was this online criticism that moved the mom to create a Colorado company built on kindness.

"People aren't born mean. Somewhere along the way we lose sight of what's really important and that's a tragedy,” she said.

Meet The Doll Kind. They’re huggable dolls that teach children about charity. The dolls come with heart-shaped tokens and encourage kids to hand them out as acts of kindness.

For each doll sold, a doll will be donated to a child less fortunate.

Farmer has launched a Kickstarter campaign and hopes her dolls will catch on.

"Help inspire [kids] to maintain their innate sense of kindness into adulthood while also empowering them to spread that kindness to others,” she said.

Reporter Kristen Skovira is a Colorado native and a Chapman University alum. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.