Chris and Jamie Ruscheinski

If you’ve lived in Langley a while, you’ve probably bought a raffle ticket, a concert ticket or a Santa photo that ended up helping someone with cancer because of these two. Chris and Jamie Ruscheinski are twin brothers who have spent more than 25 years throwing parties for a cause, and they’re good at it.

How it started

They were still in high school when their mother told them she had breast cancer. Chris has described the moment in one line: “It all started with one sentence from our mom that we will never forget… I have cancer.” Money was tight, so the brothers took extra jobs and threw a party for friends to help with her costs.

She died about three years after her diagnosis. Soon after the funeral, Jamie suggested a long charity walk; Chris, by his own account, laughed and said he couldn’t walk that far, but they could throw a party. That party, a barbecue with a raffle in a backyard, raised $22,000. In the twins’ telling, they took it to the Canadian Cancer Society in cash, in a shoebox.

Over the years they also lost a best friend, Shaun Gauthier, to cancer, and they’ve said other losses since have only made them more determined. Jamie has said the point is to help “families facing the same kind of fight our mom did.”

What they’ve built

The backyard party became Gone Country, a country-music festival that grew to about 7,000 people at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds before moving to the Jamestown western set in North Langley in 2025. Its best night, by TCF’s count, raised $1,456,000. The full record is on our year-by-year history.

They’ve run plenty of other events too. TCF lists a 2010 fundraiser for their friend that raised more than $200,000, a beach party, a Christmas long-table gala that raised nearly $200,000 over two years, and Rad Santa: photos with Santa by donation at a Langley garden centre, where families could also buy gifts from a Canuck Place Children’s Hospice wish list. TCF says Rad Santa raised nearly $60,000 for Canuck Place.

The money has gone to Canuck Place, the BC Cancer Foundation, Easter Seals House, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society, TCF’s own counselling program, and its Raise It For Your Cause program, where friends of someone with cancer sell Gone Country tickets and the proceeds go straight to that person. Since 2026 they’ve been working with the Langley Community Health and Hospital Foundation, committing to raise $1.2 million over three years toward 3D diagnostic mammography at Langley Memorial Hospital.

How they run it

The twins lean on volunteers, a couple of hundred of them in most years, and on friends in the music business. Langley singer Karen Lee Batten has played every Gone Country. The brothers have always said they keep nothing for themselves; in 2017 Jamie put it simply: “We have never taken a penny and never will.”

Jamie has also been clear that the cause matters more than the cash. Before the 2015 show he said, “Early detection is more important than raising money, so if we can get a couple of people in for testing, we’re happy.”

Recognition

Gone Country was named country event of the year at the BC Country Music Association awards, and the twins’ story was featured by Billboard Canada in 2018. The Langley hospital foundation calls TCF a fundraising partner in its mammography campaign.

Day jobs

Outside of fundraising, the brothers sell real estate in Langley as The Property Twins (Jamie’s licence is with Royal LePage – Wolstencroft, according to the BC Financial Services Authority register).

More on Gone Country

• Gone Country and Twins Cancer Fundraising, the overview
• Gone Country Jamestown 2027: tickets, times, getting there
• Gone Country history, year by year
• Jamestown, the movie-set venue
• The 2027 event listing

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