OLD TOWN – The River Coalition has a new home. And it’s free for one year.

After spending six years in an overcrowded office tucked in a corner of the Old Town YMCA, the community organization has moved to a larger facility in the heart of downtown.

“The [YMCA] was absolutely great to us and great for us,” River Coalition Director Shawn Yardley said Wednesday. “We just didn’t have enough space.”

The new site on Main Street is the former Johnson Outdoor storefront. When building owner Tom Thornton learned that one of his tenants was looking to consolidate, he immediately thought of the coalition’s need for space.

“[Thornton] knew of our physical needs, and our need for visibility,” Yardley said. Since the two are part of the same parent company, Johnson Worldwide, Johnson Outdoor has moved across the street at Old Town Canoe.

The company, however, had one year remaining on its lease and has agreed to continue paying rent for the next year as a donation to the River Coalition, according to Yardley.

“We’re here at no cost to us for the next year,” Yardley said. Although he was unsure of the actual dollar amount, he said the site was “priceless” to the coalition.

The River Coalition is a nonprofit organization that focuses on children and their families in the six river communities of Alton, Bradley, Greenbush, Indian Island, Milford and Old Town. Its purpose is to link resources, ideas, energy and experience to foster and support stronger, more caring communities.

The nonprofit organization’s new site on Main Street is more than five times the size of its previous office space and is much more visible to the community. Employees and volunteers used to coordinate who was going to be in the office at specific times because there wasn’t enough room for everyone to work at the same time.

“We literally had to coordinate how many people were in the office at a time,” Yardley said.

In addition to providing some much-needed space and visibility, the money that Johnson Outdoor pays for rent can be considered an in-kind donation that counts as matching funds for the more than $450,000 in grants that the coalition relies on to operate.

“We’re able to count it as a match and that reduces our need to raise local dollars,” said the program’s director.

Yardley hopes that with the additional space, the coalition can attract more volunteers, which is something they didn’t have room for at the old office.

“Here, we’re more visible, and we can engage people in the community,” Yardley said. “We’ve actually had walk-ins come in and pick up some of our fliers.”