Every day, dozens of local volunteers perform unheralded work to help others in the community.

Their task is enormous; their resources always stretched. But like other volunteers across the country, they never stop providing the assistance and love that their charges so desperately need.

The members of local pet rescue groups put in tireless hours to save and care for thousands of homeless pets in the Twin Counties. They rescue them from roadsides or shelters. Friends and neighbors drop them off. They find them during chance encounters while running their routine errands. Most are unwanted; many are neglected and some even suffer from abuse.

Their stories can be heart-wrenching. Rescue volunteers can recount tragic instances of finding a dog killed by a car along a road with a litter of crying puppies huddled against her lifeless body. The tragedies they encounter must often seem to continue without end. Yet they persist in their missions of mercy, celebrating their successes as they go about saving one life at a time and providing one more loving home for a deserving cat or dog.

The volunteers of Merlin's Song, Edgecombe-Nash Humane Society, Down East Animal Refuge and For Love of Dogs never shy away from the arduous tasks they face. They do it out of the love they feel for animals, bred from the familiarity they have for the intelligence and emotions of the four-legged creatures they have known throughout their lives.

But they need your help.

That's a big part of why the Telegram is launching a special series on these groups today on our Pets page. Besides offering a brief glimpse into their efforts, the series also will provide readers with a way to get involved by donating or even volunteering for their causes.

The need is great, and the amount of time, money and people never seems enough to meet the challenge of providing loving homes to the thousands of abandoned pets that deserve all the compassion our community can offer them.