Bermudians of the Year: Dr Gina Spence-Virgil

For thirty-five years, Dr Gina Spence-Virgil, 62, has used her own life experiences to find solutions to Bermuda’s community needs.

Founder of Gina Spence Productions in 1991, she supports performance artists with big dreams but little funds: school children in need of uniforms, families in need of food around Christmas time, seniors who can’t afford medication, children struggling with the grief of losing a parent to gang or gun violence, and families struggling with loss of any kind.

In 2024, Gina Spence Productions became The Gina Spence Program (GSP) because, she says, “Our focus and purpose changed in terms of the needs of the community,” and the community needed more help with loss.

Her focus on loss began in 2010 with the Champions programme, following a tragedy in her own family. “My son-in-law was shot and murdered,” she says. “My grandson was eight at the time of the murder and I was frantically trying to get support for him, specific to homicide, as a child. There was nothing there.” Through the Champions programme, she also found there was no real support for families experiencing other forms of loss which led to the creation of Healing Hearts in 2023: “Any type of loss that happens, people are referred to us or we let the community know we’re here to serve them.” This isn’t just loss of life; it could be job loss, divorce, or loss of a pet. Her Grief Connect programme also provides workshops, which educate organisations about how to help a grieving person. As an indication of the positive impact she has had—while the numbers don’t do justice to all the lives she has touched—10,000 children have been supported by the school uniform programme, Each One Reach One; 114 children by Champions; and she aims to help around 200 families with food every Christmas.

Spence-Virgil is inspired by her faith and the people she serves: “God has always been my source, and I don’t think there’s any more powerful way you can let someone know about the love of Jesus Christ than through your story.” Family is also very important to her, especially her husband, Ronald, and children Edwina, Greashena and Mykiee. Her daughter, Mykiee Jones, is now executive director at GSP and has made it her mission to carry forward her mother’s legacy.

Whenever she is asked why she does what she does, Spence-Virgil, who spent time in foster care as a child, remembers people helping her own mother with school clothes and food while she was working three jobs. “It was the kindness that people showed her, and us, that I’ve never forgotten,” she says. “We have to share the care and compassion. That’s the belly of GSP.”