Mindy Vincent was looking online to buy some face masks for herself and her staff back in April. She saw a mask with tiny penises all over it - she was sold.
“Well, I’m hilarious, and I have a great sense of humor. And ejaculating penises are also hilarious,” said Vincent.
When the masks arrived she posted a photo on facebook wearing one.
“I started noticing it was jumping by the hundreds every second, and then it was jumping by a thousand every second. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’” said Vincent.
The caption read in part: “When someone tells me my mask has penises on it, I kindly let them know this is how I determine they are too close and kindly back the f*ck up.”
The post has since racked up over 500,000 shares. People were asking where they could buy one of these masks and #penismaskproject was born. Vincent decided to make her own penis-printed masks and sell them to raise money for the nonprofit she runs, the Utah Harm Reduction Coalition.
“The demand was so high and people were like, what about boobs, what about vaginas? So we were like why not boobs and vaginas, that’s a good question,” said Vincent.
The masks are now available in four prints: flying penises, excited penises, boobs – either on a dark or light background and vaginas. The whole thing might sound like one big joke, but it helped save Vincent’s struggling non-profit.
“It changed my whole life,” said Vincent. “In fact at the time that these masks went crazy I hadn’t been paid in four paychecks.”
Vincent said that she often dips into her own paychecks from her private practice to keep the organization afloat. So far she’s sold over 12,000 masks and netted over $100,000 for the Utah Harm Reduction Coalition. The funds arrived just in time.
“Our funding was about to run out from the Utah Department of Health, and this just puts us in a place where UHRC will be around always,” said Vincent.
