Evidence that Westport’s animal disaster has touched hearts near and far could be seen time and again at the busy command center just in from 465 American Legion Highway.

During three hours around midday last Thursday, a half dozen or more private cars and pickup trucks pulled in with donations on board or offers of help.

“It’s been like that all the time,” said Josh Matson, an officer with Ontario (Canada) SPCA who was working at the crime scene entrance that day with colleague Brad Dewar.

Angie McGrath drove in with a Honda CRV loaded to the brim with food and supplies collected in her hometown of Attleboro, Mass.

Aboard were several bales of hay, cases of water, animal feed, trash bags and refreshments for rescue workers.

“This is so sad … we wanted to help,” she said — ‘we’ includes local members of New England PAWS and the Mass. Feline Intervention Alliance (MAFIA) . “We’ll be back with more.”

Later Norm Chouinard of Westport arrived. The back of his pickup held several big trash bags packed with fresh picked lettuce and beans “for the animals.” He handed one of the string beans to officer Matson for a taste.

“Very good,” he said, as he helped load the vegetables onto the next truck to head back into the woods.

Minutes later, another woman entered with offers of “food and whatever else I can do to help.”

She asked not to be identified but said she lives on a farm in Westport.

“I’m doing this because this whole situation disgusts me,” she said.

The officers welcomed her offer of fresh farm food but said they have all the workers they need.

The property remains a crime scene, they said, so there need to be tight controls over all who come and go.

From another car came volunteer animal emergency workers from Boston wearing Boston Animal Rescue League (a group that has been working on the scene from the start) shirts. Trained in such work and authorized by the Rescue League, they were signed in and awaited rides to their assignments.

One of the women said she had worked several shifts there already and said much of what she had seen was frightful.

More heartening was the response by animals clearly unaccustomed to human affection and fresh food and water.

“Some of them don’t seem to know what to make of it at first” but before long “they come right up to you, follow you around everywhere.”

The ASPCA welcomes donations: For information on how to help visit www.aspca.org/donate