He said his business had been flourishing and “from the outside I really looked like I had it all going on, but deep down I couldn't stand who I was.”

Weiss, 33, is CEO of House of Hope of the Pee Dee, a Christ-centered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that serves the needs of men, women and children facing homelessness. He recounts how childhood trauma had set him upon a road toward “dark vices.”

He said, "I lived with a chip on my shoulder for a long time, and I can say that God saved not just my life, but also the relationships around me, and I'm so grateful for that. I'm a perfect example of what the House of Hope does not only for our staff members, but what He has done for the people of this community."

He recalls his own epiphany having come when a friend had given him the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. “The first line in that book says, ‘It’s not all about you,’” Weiss said, "and for the first time in my life, I was like, ‘Dang, nobody’s ever told me that.’ I had thought it was all about me.”

Weiss says that he had believed in God before 2022, “but I was not walking in relationship with Jesus ... I lived to please me above everybody else, and I think a lot of men do that nowadays. They live for instant satisfaction. They live for quick bursts and feeding their addictions, whether it be food, money, image, clothing ... all these different things.

“When I understood that it wasn't about Jon Weiss, that it was about making a difference and walking in a relationship with Jesus, my life completely changed, and it has changed not only in 2022, but it continues to get better every single year. I continue to grow more as a human ... as a leader, and I’m here to tell you it’s freeing. It’s very freeing having that relationship with Him and what He’s able to do in your life.”

Weiss has attended Cornerstone Baptist Church in Darlington, since 2022.

In 1990, a couple named Bill and Jean Fryar had seen their town’s community shelter turn away homeless families and, according to Weiss, “God put it on their hearts to sell everything they owned and move to Florence.” They bought Elim High School in Effingham and converted it to a men’s shelter under the name New Life Rescue Ministry.

“In 2006 we became House of Hope, and since then we’ve seen tremendous growth,” Weiss said.

The House of Hope provides housing and recovery programs. They typically see more than 120 people at its various shelters, and it prepares more than 100,000 meals a year.

The nonprofit opened its Courtney McGinnis Graham Community Shelter — 535 S. Church St., Florence — in October 2016. The shelter remains open 24 hours year-round. Men, women and children may stay up to 30 days working with case managers to enter House of Hope programs or to connect with other resources around the state. When temperatures drop below 40 degrees, they open a warming facility next to the community shelter. Women and children stay in separate wings from men for safety, Weiss said.

The organization’s men’s life recovery program requires a commitment of nine months to a year, and it begins in the Addictions Recovery Center, a 139-acre wooded property. Men in the program live at the ARC and undertake a drug and alcohol abuse curriculum. Afterward, they transition to dorm-style quarters at the men’s shelter, 1020 W. Darlington St., where for the next six-nine months they work on education and workforce development opportunities. Weiss said 100% of men in this phase of the recovery program, who are job- and education-ready, are either in the workforce or getting certificates. In 2005 House of Hope opened its first graduate house, where men can live more independently — with some guard rails, Weiss says — for 180 days.

The nonprofit opened Hope Village in 2022. This comprises 24 tiny houses next to the Darlington Street office, where women, some with children, may stay up to two years. Since this program began, House of Hope has helped more than 40 women regain custody of their children and 40-plus women obtain their GED diplomas, according to Weiss.

House of Hope operates a thrift store, the Mission Mart at 953 S. Irby St. The public can bring donations there, and sales go directly back to the ministry. Residents across all its facilities shop for free with dignity, Weiss said. Not only does it generate revenue, but the Mission Mart also provides workforce development. It staffs about 10 people and, “at any given time, we have three or four that are in our programs working over there.”

The nonprofit has its own kitchen that prepares more than 330 meals a day. For quality control and logistics, all of the food is cooked in one kitchen and then catered to the nonprofit’s various facilities for food quality and operational integrity, according to Weiss.

House of Hope partners with Florence 1 School District on an outreach program called Shelter and Nutrition for All Children, which serves families within the district experiencing homelessness or housing instability. “The program has provided us a more forward-facing mentality in the school district,” Weiss said, “so now administrators, counselors and teachers have a direct line of communication with our ... staff, so we can provide help more quickly and more efficiently.”

Once it opens its resource center in Hartsville, House of Hope plans to partner with Darlington County School District.

Weiss said his organization aims to train enrollees in its programs how to become financially sustainable members of the community and leaders in the workforce, through education, workforce development and attending to basic needs: Spiritual, physical, mental and medical. He said people in their long-term programs undergo life-skills, financial-management and, in some cases, parenting curricula. This includes how to file taxes and build a resume. “You are versed in how to interact from an employee’s standpoint. You are versed in understanding how much money needs to go into your checking and savings and how you start saving money.”

With its purchase of a 7,800-square-foot building at 212 W. Carolina Ave. in Hartsville, the House of Hope of the Pee Dee is taking a first step at expanding into another city. “Through a large donation, we were able to purchase that building,” Weiss said. “A gracious donor came to us and said, ‘Jon how much will that building cost? Here’s the money, go purchase that building.’”

The organization had bought the building outright in May 2025 for $460,000.

The Hartsville resource center will be open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5, and in-house case managers, as well as representatives from other nonprofits, will be on hand to assist. Case managers are positions that might otherwise be called social workers or counselors. On-site amenities will include showers and laundry facilities and, similar to the Courtney McGinnis Graham center, the Hartsville facility will also have a warming shelter that can accommodate 40 people when temperatures go below 40 degrees.

House of Hope plans to make office space available to other nonprofits and even schools at no charge, so they may provide their own services. Weiss said, “We want to bring [other groups] under one roof, so people aren’t walking all over town trying to find resources ... I want an individual to walk through those doors, and we get them help that day at that facility and find out how we can get this individual in a better position tomorrow than they’re in today.”

Weiss has sent out invitations broadly to local groups, nonprofit or otherwise. He said he would welcome a representative from Hartsville Interfaith Ministries, a peer-support specialist from Rubicon Family Counseling, and career counselors from Coker University and Florence-Darlington Technical College, to name a few.

“We’re going to try to partner with everybody that we possibly can,” he said. “We’ll have eight office spaces, and we’ll only utilize probably three of them in the House of Hope. I’m going to give anybody an opportunity that wants to be involved with what we have going on with flex office space to bring their services under that roof. That doesn’t mean they have to get rid of their footprint right now. It just means they can send a staff member over there for the day.”

He said he’s seeing “very good interest” from groups he had reached out to. “Everybody has been very energetic and positive about the idea. We would hope to fill office space at all times. That’s the general consensus. I don’t want any of those office spaces being empty.”

Interior demolition of the structure had begun in early February, and Weiss expects the work to finish early May. The renovation process comprises putting in a new roof and air conditioning units, and an exterior uplift and complete gut of the interior. House of Hope has tapped Delta Building Systems of Florence to do the work.

Once they reach the leg of construction where the offices are in place, House of Hope can “look to possibly hire case managers and start meeting with people,” Weiss said. He expects at least some of the Hartsville facility’s services to come online in a soft open in fall.

House of Hope currently has three case managers who collectively meet with more than 100 people weekly. Weiss said they would likely hire two or three more case managers for the Hartsville center.

House of Hope aims to raise $1.6 million dollars for the Hartsville center, $1 million for the renovation and more than $600,000 for the first two years of operating expenses. Weiss said it will cost “$302,000 per year to run the building the correct way,” and that funding would lay the foundation for “two years of stability.”

He hopes to raise that money by year's end.

Hartsville City Council on Jan. 15 moved to provide House of Hope an $85,000 forgivable loan for the work. Weiss said his organization and the city of Hartsville had agreed to a three-year term with discussions for extensions in the future, adding in a separate interview that the money would not have to paid back if the work was completed within the loan’s term,

Weiss said, “It’s awesome to see the buy-in in Hartsville.”

The sign appeared to him on, of all places, his refrigerator. Weiss tells the story about how he had taken a bottle of water from it. “I close the fridge, and dead in the middle of [the door] at eye height was a House of Hope magnet, just like that. I had never seen it in my life. My wife had gotten it out of a drawer to hang a Christmas card the night before. When I needed to see that sign, God put a House of Hope magnet in front of my face, and that’s why I came to the House of Hope."

Weiss came on as vice president of development in late 2022. In February 2024, Braddock had approached him, apprising him that he had turned in his resignation to the board and that Weiss was next in line. He has been CEO of House of Hope of the Pee Dee since March 2024.

Back then, the nonprofit had been accommodating about 80 people in its facilities; currently, that number typically exceeds 120. The group had held some debt then, but it’s debt-free now. In 2024 “we had a culture that needed some changing," Weiss said, adding that he believes his staff has “been called in the ministry, and if they’re looking for a job, there’s plenty of other people that offer job opportunities, but this is a ministry call. Everybody here under these roofs understands that and takes it very literally.”

House of Hope of the Pee Dee employs 50 people across its facilities; that’s fewer than it had in 2024. “We’re having more of an impact with fewer employees,” Weiss said. “I task all ministry leaders with running their ministry or nonprofit like a business. How do I as a CEO stretch your dollar the farthest it possibly can to make the biggest impact? If you’re not running your ministry like a business, you’re doing yourself an injustice.”

One example is food service. The organization’s kitchen cooks more than 100,000 meals in a year at a cost of about $12,000.

Weiss said that skills he had learned from his business background, understanding how to cut costs and view details through a risk-adviser lens, have helped him run the House of Hope. He said he played Division 1 golf and earned a sports management in business degree at James Madison University in Virginia. “That’s helped me understand how to run a business and how to stretch that dollar that you give to have the most impact possible,” he said. “God was preparing me for this through my insurance, through my schooling, through everything that I went through in my life.

"It’s incredible what we have been able to accomplish as a ministry and as a staff in just 22 months of me being here in this seat, and it has nothing to do with me. It’s all God and all the amazing staff that we have here at the House of Hope.”

The House of Hope enlists aid from volunteers — both individual and as part of groups, particularly businesses — via the volunteer page on its website, but also through use of a mobile app called Causer, available on Apple Store and Google Play. Weiss said, “We have a list of 30 things you can sign up for every single day. You can pick what opportunities you or your group want to do.”

He listed off local businesses that had recently done group volunteer work: Darlington Raceway, QVC, Honda South Carolina Manufacturing, Pepsi, Niagara Bottling LLC. “I could list probably a hundred companies that donate their time and money to this ministry,” he said, adding that “95% of companies that volunteer also donate to the ministry, which we’re very thankful for.”

House of Hope of the Pee Dee has a budget of $2.75 million a year, half of which is raised from individual donations and churches. More than 30% comes from grants, endowments, foundations and local businesses, and slightly less than 10% comes from thrift store proceeds. “We could not do what we do without our community’s support,” Weiss said.

The organization holds two major fundraising events a year: The Hope Invitational golf tournament in September and the Evening of Hope in March. This year’s Evening of Hope is Monday at the Florence Center and features professional surfer and documentarian Bethany Hamilton.

More than a hundred individuals and companies sponsor Evening of Hope, according to Weiss. He said last year’s event sold 121 tables for $2,500 or more. More than 1,800 people attended the 2025 event, and Weiss expects similar turnout this year.

House of Hope cultivates partnerships with more than 50 local organizations, from nonprofits, to businesses, to local government. For example, their partnership with Florence School District 1 involves the district sending tutors twice weekly to work with children living in Hope Village.

“House of Hope understands that we can’t do everything,” Weiss said. “When you understand what God has put you here to do, you do it the best out of anybody, and then you partner with others who are best at what they do in their space. That’s how you create real change.”

For Jon Weiss, it’s about restoring hope and affecting lives through Christ. “The people we're seeing, they have no hope,” he said. “Some of them have never been shown love and compassion, and now they get that every single day. Not only that, we help them dream about what they want to do.”

It’s not only the lives of their clientele that the House of Hope transforms. “If I had kept going down the path I was going down, I don’t know if I’d still be here; it’s that simple,” Weiss says. "That’s how big a transformation God can have on your life. A guy that was in insurance, feeding his addiction, now is running a nonprofit ministry ... A guy who hated himself four years ago now loves himself, now has a great relationship with his wife, with his parents and family, now gets to disciple to men every single day and tell them what God has done in his life. That is a miracle.”