About Our Founder

 Helping Individuals Succeed Inc. was the vision of Charlie Jones. He had a desire to help individuals in need and to support them in their journey to success. Charlie’s life was filled with many obstacles and challenges; at pivotal points in his life’s story, someone stepped in to help him succeed and he lived his life working to positively influence the lives of others. At around 16 years old, he was walking in his community when everything changed. He was shot by a police officer in Miami, Florida. Although Jones recovered from his injuries, he found himself abusing prescription pills as a method of pain management. Later he gravitated to street drugs when he was no longer able to obtain pills legally. This proved to be an expensive habit. He turned to burglary and robbery to support his addiction. As a result, he was arrested many times for breaking the law. Upon his final arraignment, the judge presented the option of serving time or entering into a Christian faith-based residential program geared towards rehabilitation and addiction. This program is called Teen Challenge. It provided the needed structure to support his personal, professional and spiritual growth. After exiting the program he decided education was the best path to his success. He completed his bachelors and while pursuing higher education, he also started his ministry training. Jones went on to be ordained as an Associate Pastor at Miami Revival Tabernacle Assembly of God. That is where he met and married the love of his life Hattie Bowden-Jones. His drive to succeed kept him pushing for advancement. Pastor Charlie worked his way up in leadership at Miami Job Corps Center and went on to complete his master’s degree. A job opportunity opened up as a director at Workforce One. Shortly after, he and his wife felt called to start a ministry with him as Senior Pastor. They focused on individuals who did not seem to fit the traditional concept of a churchgoer. Services were many times casual. At its inception, breakfast and snacks were also serviced after the services. As he looked around at the young people attending the church realizing that the support they needed went beyond the doors of the church walls. In 2005 Helping Individuals Succeed was incorporated as a non-profit organization to help meet the personal needs of the clients. This was done while working as a director and pastor. In 2010, Charlie suffered complications from a medical issue and passed away before seeing the completion of his labor with Helping Individuals Succeed. The organization was dissolved in 2012 until our current president, who was one of Pastor Jones' protege restarted the organization.