A Lawrence girl’s effort to raise money for better playground equipment has inspired other children to help and has brought in a flood of donations.

So far, 10-year-old Chloe Sheridan has raised about $1,400 for her Playground Enhancement Fund for Pine Tree Townhouses, a subsidized-housing complex near 19th Street and Haskell Avenue. She began collecting donations earlier this month because she was frustrated with the scarcity of swings and modern playground equipment in the kid-friendly complex.

After she appeared in local news reports, her story was featured in USA Today, which motivated a woman to write from Florida pledging a $10 donation.

“It was just cool to me because it was all the way from Florida,” Chloe said.

She also received an anonymous $500 donation last week and $500 during the weekend from a customer at her mother’s refurbished furniture store, The Red Dresser, 626 N. Second St. Chloe has been using the store as the site of her lemonade stand and this weekend raised $120 there.

Six-year-old Avery Miller and 8-year-old Maddie McCaffrey don’t know Chloe but spent Monday selling lemonade for her project at a stand in the 3000 block of Trail Road. Avery’s mother, Jan, said her daughter just wanted to help.

Also, a group of Girl Scouts showed up Saturday at Chloe’s lemonade stand and offered to make tie-dye T-shirts to be sold at Thursday’s downtown sidewalk sale as a benefit, said Chloe’s aunt, Hannah Sheridan.

Hannah Sheridan also said she’d been contacted by a group from the Roger Hill Volunteer Center that’s interested in having a car wash for the cause.