The Animal Saviors: Mac's Mission and Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary are two shelters that take in animals with special needs

Editor's note: This is the first of a series looking at animal rescue efforts in the community.

There are multiple organizations, each with their own unique mission to create change and make a difference, in the southeast Missouri region. Two operate, located in Jackson, Missouri and maintain their individual goals while reaching for the care of the special animals who need a little extra love: Mac's Mission and Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary.

Both organizations believe strongly in rescuing the animals that aren't your typical "happy and healthy."

"There's a home for every animal that exist; it's just finding it," said Montica Babers, primary caretaker of Safe Harbor.

Babers, who has been the primary caretaker since 2012, said the mission of Safe Harbor is to doits part in stopping overpopulation of animals, while focusing on finding homes for those animals who are harder to place -- especially seniors and special-needs cats.

Two chihuahua pups, Laura and Snow, watch out a front window of Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary Dec. 14 in Jackson.KASSI JACKSON

Safe Harbor has five rooms dedicated to different personalities and ages of around 100 cats, including those that have individual, unique physical needs.

"It's just about giving them what they wouldn't have anywhere else," Babers said. "And not having their life on the line because they have problems and expenses that people don't want to handle."

Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary currently has five cat rooms that have both indoor and outdoor accessibility for them, and the shelter is working on gathering the funds to be able to do that with their dogs, also. The approximately 20 dogs that Safe Harbor houses are mostly outside in kennels furnished with a dog house and hay for the animals to keep warm. With hopes to start in the spring, Babers said they are going to do whatever they can to provide a building for the dogs, too.

"It's not enough; [the dogs] need to be inside," Babers said.

Safe Harbor isn't the only rescue organization that is expanding and growing through the help of donations and volunteers. Mac's Mission, based out of Jackson, continues to grow and now has a permanent location.

Krista Antill, a 5-year volunteer of Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary, embraces chihuahua pups Laura and Snow after entering the Safe Harbor building Dec. 14 in Jackson.

Founder Rochelle Steffen said Mac's Mission "specializes in special" and focuses on the dogs that the average rescue wouldn't put time and money into. From dogs with mange to puppies with cleft palates, Mac's Mission does everything in its power to give the dogs the chance at a life they deserve.

"There's not really us anywhere," Steffen said. "There's a lot of [traditional] rescues throughout the state, but not the ones that always jump off the cliff for the crazy, sick, broken, janky dogs."

The rescue is still stinging from a high-profile $120,000 theft in July from a former treasurer who Steffen said "was like a sister to me."

Steffen said Mac's Mission was born because she used to volunteer at the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri and saw dogs being euthanized because of their high-risk medical cases and lack of resources at the shelter, and it "really bothered" her. She started doing what she could to foster them. When she and her best friend ended up rescuing Mac, now 8 -- who would become the face of their mission -- they raised funds for his five major leg surgeries by selling t-shirts at the farmer's market, in addition to working multiple jobs, and the community support continued to skyrocket from there.

"A lot of it is just time and effort and a lot of the rescues are more focused on getting a dog and adopting it out, and we need that, truly," Steffen said. "But, [Mac's Mission has] kind of filled that little need [of] the dogs that are going to die without us. That's how I try to tell it to everybody."

Volunteer April Pearson loves on and plays with some of the cats in a cat room of Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary Dec. 14 in Jackson.

The rescue, which also has fosters in Texas and Virginia, has become well-known through Mac's following on social media -- with more than 545,000 'likes' on Facebook and nearly 43,000 followers on Instagram. Steffen said her phone is constantly buzzing with a new rescue being sent her, the page being tagged in a post or donations being made.

"Mac, the Facebook page, speaks as Mac," she said. "I like to hide behind my dog because I don't want the attention, but I want him to get the attention so that he can keep doing what he's doing. He's got like an 8-year-old boy [personality] so he talks as that 8-year-old kid that teases things."

"I eat and breathe this," Steffen said.

And just as Rochelle Steffen of Mac's Mission is dedicated and immersed in her rescue, so is Montica Babers with Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary.

"I'm here because I'm here," Babers said. "I've never been happier."

Volunteer April Pearson loves on and plays with some of the cats in a cat room of Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary Dec. 14 in Jackson.KASSI JACKSON

Both Mac's Mission and Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary run solely on donations and rely on the help of volunteers.

kjackson@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3636