Vicie Motz said Wednesday that she was sure she would have a very happy Thanksgiving day.

"All I'll have to do is look out the window," Motz said.

Outside her window on Wednesday, a crew from Englewood Lawn and Landscapes, LLC, of Johnson City, was busy planting shrubs and trees, adding topsoil and mulch, and generally beautifying the front of her small home.

Tim Simounet, president of Englewood, said plans include two 15-foot-tall trees to shade the front of the house.

The landscapers were also edging the new asphalt driveway that Bracken Paving installed on Friday.

More work is planned, including a rear porch, and all of it is a gift. Motz didn't ask for it, or expect it, and still can't quite believe it.

"It still seems like a dream," she said.

Motz lives on Kidwell School Road, almost within sight of her church, Hardins Chapel United Methodist.

On Sunday, when the pastor asked if anyone had a "praise report," Motz was able to tell the congregation that the licensed practical nurses who come every day to help with her three adopted special-needs children now have paved places to park, and won't have to dodge mud puddles or negotiate wheelchairs in the gravel.

Thanks to folks Motz hadn't met before last week, she now has a smooth, paved driveway connecting her house at one end and her late mother's house by the road at the other.

Her neighbors may well have seen her dancing for joy on the new asphalt Friday night, she said, smiling at the memory, and at the smooth drive.

The driveway, Motz said, will now allow her to take the three children in their wheelchairs to her mother's house, and use the children's physical therapy equipment in the carpeted living room.

"I think God has truly blessed me," Motz told The Greeneville Sun as she watched the landscape work starting to take shape.

Motz has been this year's beneficiary of a Christian ministry called "Mission: Outreach Overhaul," said Amanda Bracken, co-owner with her husband, Alan, of Bracken Paving, of Blountville, and founder of a three-part ministry called "More Than A Driveway."

Mission: Outreach Overhaul is one part, along with "Courts for Kids," which builds basketball courts, and "Camps for Kids," which sends children to camp in the summer.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Bracken said Motz was nominated by the nurses who help her, and then chosen by a 12-member board that receives input from other "trusted sources."

The board makes its choice "based on what we are able to do, and what the needs are," Bracken said.

"Last year, we decided to put a name" on the charitable giving that Bracken Paving has been doing for a few years, and allow other "like-minded, like-hearted businesses" to get involved if they want, Bracken said.

"We share the family story with them," Bracken said, and businesses help out as they can.

Asked why Mission: Outreach Overhaul does what it does, Bracken told The Greeneville Sun that she has seen terrible needs in Rwanda and South America, "but sadly, there are needs that sit right in our back door."

Bracken said when she saw needs, she asked, "God, why? Why am I so fortunate?" She said the realization was clear that she is fortunate, "so that I can do something for those that aren't."

Bracken said she was inspired by what Motz does every day for the three children she has adopted, and so was the board of Mission: Outreach Overhaul.

Simounet said he got involved in the outreach initially because of his friendship and business relationship with the Brackens. He said, "This is a kind of 'pay it forward' deal. That's what I get from it."'

[His reference was an apparent allusion to the Pay It Forward concept, in which one person who has received a favor from someone repays it by doing a favor for a third person, and so on, thus creating a continuing chain of kind acts.]

Simounet, now a board member of Mission: Outreach Overhaul, said Motz is obviously very deserving.

He said that he noticed as soon as he arrived at her home that she likes plants, but with all she does caring for the children, she has little time to care for them.

Teri Rininger, a licensed practical nurse, helps Motz, usually at night, and nominated her after learning of Mission: Outreach Overhaul on the Internet.

Rininger said she watched Motz use Quick-Crete to make a wheelchair ramp, but the results were rough, and the gravel driveway was worse. (On Friday, that ramp received a smooth coat of asphalt.)

Motz worked as a licensed physical therapist assistant at Greene Valley Developmental Center for 13 years. One day a special-needs baby named Tyler "came in," and Motz and her late husband, Ron, adopted him.

In 2003, Ron Motz died. The next year, Tyler, by then a teenager, also died, she said.

After "sitting around wondering what to do" for a while, Motz said she realized that "other kids need love," and contacted the Tennessee Department of Children's Services.

Eventually, she was able to adopt three children.

Trevor, who will turn 13 on Dec. 5, was first. Trevor was born normal, Motz said, but an episode of sudden infant death syndrome left his brain damaged.

His mother already had two children and could not care for him, Motz said.

Hunter and Angel, both age 6, were taken from different homes because of medical neglect and were both in state custody (Hunter in Florida, Angel in Knoxville) when Motz was able to adopt them.

All three of the children are tube-fed, she said. Trying to feed them normally, with a spoon and cup, inevitably gets food into their lungs.

Trevor needs oxygen at night. The children have to be suctioned regularly to keep their airways clear, and are incontinent.

They cannot talk, or walk, but they respond to touch and sound, and to hugs from their mother, said Victor Senabria, LPN.

Trevor "knows his mom" and responds to her voice and to other noises, and likes racing, at Bristol and Bulls Gap, Senabria said.

Hunter has a history of epilepsy and has seizures. Angel had to have hip surgery because muscle spasms dislocated both hips. Trevor needs the same surgery, Motz said.

Doctors are reluctant to do the surgery, she said, and the State of Tennessee has said Trevor's TennCare will be cut in half next year.

One condition of his adoption was that the state would cover his health care, she said, and she may have to go to court over it.

Last May, the Tennessee Justice Center, of Nashville, an organization that gives legal representation to TennCare patients, honored Motz as one of its "Mothers of the Year."

The citation for the award said it was given "for her persistence in battling to obtain medical services for her adopted son and for her extraordinary commitment to the health care of all children and families."

For more information on Mission: Outdoor Overhaul, visit www.BrackenPaving.com.