New London — Chelsea Phillips sees the impact that lacrosse has had on her life. It's opened doors that would have been otherwise inaccessible, especially when it came to selecting a college.

Now, she is using the sport to give back.

Phillips grew up in Waterford and started playing lacrosse at age 10. A graduate of St. Bernard School, she never expected to come back home after graduating from Emerson College in Boston, where she also played lacrosse.

But after leaving Emerson for the final time in 2014, Phillips accepted a job in New London. Her collegiate career over, she missed lacrosse, and the void was worsened by the lack of a lacrosse program in the city.

"Most of the kids in New London that I've spoken to have never even heard of lacrosse," Phillips said.

Unlike basketball and football, lacrosse is still a fairly new sport, only recently increasing in popularity since the turn of the century. Phillips teamed up with Phil Schneider — the East Lyme High School girls' coach and president of the CT Chapter of US Lacrosse — to put on a youth lacrosse clinic Wednesday for about 150 kids of the New London Recreation summer camps at Nathan Hale Art and Magnet School.

The clinic, sponsored by the chapter and funded through a Diversity and Inclusion grant from US Lacrosse, aimed to promote the sport and increase the number of kids interested in the New London youth program.

Upon moving back to New London, Phillips quickly realized the lack of interest in lacrosse from the town's youth. Along with Waterford native Adam Grillo, who played lacrosse at Mitchell College, she decided to start a youth program herself.

"I was aware that there was a lack of interest," she said. " ... New London in general had not really known that much about lacrosse, so I would go to all the youth basketball games and sit there and talk to the kids and just kind of like, hand out t-shirts to promote it."

So when Schneider, who's spent the last 10 summers in the New London Recreation summer programs, asked Phillips about putting on a clinic for young campers, the idea proved beneficial to all parties.

Schneider decided to combine the two local summer camps composed of kids ages 6-10 from Winthrop and Nathan Hale, and brought them together to educate them on the basics of lacrosse for a day.

"Being in this area myself, I knew that New London was a new program," Schneider said. "I was here with all these campers, we had this grant so it just kind of (worked)."

After just one season, the newly-established New London youth lacrosse program is still searching for more bodies and coaches.

Last season, Phillips said she started with just 20 kids, ranging from ages 7-13, barely enough to piece together an under-13 team. She's also looking for experienced players to teach the game to parents who may be interested in coaching.

But despite the lack of current popularity, Phillips is confident the sport can take off. She knows what lacrosse did for her and is eager to show other kids the opportunities that can be presented to them.

"Anybody that's really picked up the stick and has come to one of our practices is hooked. They don't leave and they love it," Phillips said.

As of now, New London High School has no lacrosse program. It is Phillips' hope, and the mission of Schneider and the CT Chapter of US Lacrosse, to promote the sport enough to establish a reliable youth feeder program, one that will hopefully catch the eye of the high school and prompt them to create a team of their own.

While Schneider gathered up the lacrosse equipment Wednesday and piled it into his car — goal posts, nets, balls and a US Lacrosse tent — a pile of shirts lay in a cardboard box that had imprinted on them in black letters, "Game on and pass it on."

Lacrosse in New London is growing.

"It does just take a little while to kind of build it up," Schneider said, "but it just takes some motivated adults to kind of keep putting the message out there keep giving these kids these opportunities and eventually it catches on."