[COVER STORY]
The Wolff Family:
Shout-Out for an Active Lifestyle
by Eric Johnson
I t’s right there, hanging on the kitchen wall in plain view so that
every family member — Mom, Dad, and the three children —
knows exactly what’s going on and who’s going where at what
time, every day of the week.
It’s the Wolff family’s bright, color-coded calendar prominently
displayed on a 32-inch, wall-mounted computer monitor. And
it’s one reason why this energetic family of five successfully
manages an incredibly busy schedule.
But another key reason why the Wolffs — Jeffrey the dad, Jen
the mom, and their children Charlotte, Audrey, and Olivia —
can fit so much into a single day is that they live in a special
community that supports an active family lifestyle. That
community, of course, is Chantilly.
From their home base in the Walney Oaks subdivision, the
parents balance careers, community service, and neighborhood
volunteering. They provide all of the necessary transportation for
the children, each of whom attends a different school.
Jeffrey and Jen also faithfully support their children’s interests
in a wealth of pursuits including ballet, chorus, dance, soccer,
lacrosse, school musicals, and even performing in a professional
theater. And they generously arrange Disney World trips,
exotic overseas travel, and excursions to New York City for
Broadway shows.
Convenient, close-knit, can-do Chantilly is the perfect
springboard for all of the events color-coded on the Wolffs’
kitchen calendar.
“I like the variety of opportunities there are for our family” in
Chantilly, Jen said in a recent interview with her family. “It has a
small-town feel and at the same time you are close
to everything.
“We enjoy our neighbors,” she added. “Everyone is so caring and
keeps an eye out for each other.”
Jeffrey said, “The facilities in the area are fantastic. The schools
are great. Chantilly is probably the best place to raise a family.”
Even the children offered a shout-out for Chantilly.
Third-grader Olivia commented that, “I like the teachers and the
coaches and the dogs here.” (The Wolff family’s pet is a 6-yearold
Goldendoodle named Bailey, who happens to be one of two
Goldendoodles named Bailey in the neighborhood. They’ve had
him since he was a puppy.) “The dogs are really cute.”
Audrey, who is in sixth grade, said she likes Chantilly’s culinary
delights and is a fan of Japanese cuisine. “I like the wide variety of
foods,” she said. “I feel like any food you could possibly imagine,
you can get it here.”
And Charlotte, an eighth grader who excels as a big sister,
appreciates her Chantilly neighbors. “I like all the friendly people
who live around here, and how it’s so easy to make new friends,”
she said.


Chantilly is a home by choice for Jeffrey and Jen. He hails
from East Meadow, N.Y., a Long Island community, and came
to appreciate Fairfax County while attending George Mason
University. Jen is a Baltimore native who graduated from Towson
University.
The couple started dating after a chance encounter at a meeting
of the Kiwanis Club of Tysons, a community service organization
that focuses on helping children. Jen was delighted to learn that
Jeffrey had been a founding member of the club. The rest is
history.
Volunteer service with Kiwanis has helped shape their strong
relationship. Each has served in an official capacity as a
governor of the Capital District Kiwanis, an umbrella group for the approximately 160 Kiwanis Clubs in
Virginia, DC, Maryland, Delaware, and
West Virginia. Jeffrey was the district’s
governor from 2011-12 and currently
serves as Executive Director, while
Jen served as governor from 2022-23,
providing leadership for 4,000 club
members across the region.
Jeffrey and Jen have also supported one
another. “I find it easier to be active in
Kiwanis if your spouse is also in Kiwanis,”
Jen said. “We try very hard to balance our
activity in the organization.”
Community events include a frigid “polar
dip” swim every February in Reston’s Lake
Anne to raise money for Northern Virginia
charities. The Kiwanis club also revived
overgrown gardens to help Brookfield
Elementary School students regain use
of their Outdoor Learning Lab after the
COVID-19 public health emergency.
The couple is keen to involve their
children in philanthropic endeavors
whenever possible. Charlotte, for
example, volunteered for the Brookfield
garden project. Charlotte was also one
of the approximately 1,000 youngsters to
graduate so far from babysitting training in
areas such as first aid and choking rescue
through a Kiwanis-sponsored Safe Sitter
program that started in 2009.
An Active Family's Pursuits
by Eric Johnson
Jeffrey and Jen Wolff encourage their three daughters to pursue extracurricular
activities — and their dreams —- while doing all they can to provide support.
On Tuesdays in mid-January, for example, the parents were taking Olivia and
Charlotte to dance lessons while carving out time for Audrey’s voice lessons
followed by dance lessons. On other days of the week, they focused on a wide
variety of pursuits including lacrosse practice, ballet recitals, and professional
acting.
Coordination and cooperation have been crucial for their success. “I’m usually
taking them to ballet while Jeffrey cooks so that we can all be fed,” Jen explained.
Here are some of the many facets of this busy family’s Chantilly lifestyle:
- All three girls perform at Not Just Dance, a theatrical arts studio in Chantilly.
- Last summer, Audrey auditioned for and was cast as Susan Walker for a professional run of Miracle on 34th Street at Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, Md. She appeared in 33 shows over two months.
- Audrey is starring in a short film called “Portrait of Shadows,” directed by Anthony Parson, an Emmy award-winning sound designer and Emmy-nominated film director, and is being considered for other roles.
- Charlotte is involved with theater at her middle school, currently starring as SpongeBob SquarePants in The SpongeBob Musical at Franklin Middle School.
- Charlotte and Olivia dance at
the Center for Ballet Arts, where
Charlotte is a member of the Ballet
Arts Ensemble of Fairfax.
- Audrey takes tap, jazz, and voice lessons at Not Just Dance.
- Academically, Charlotte is a member of the National Junior Honors Society at Franklin Middle School. Audrey and Olivia are both Advanced Academic students at their elementary schools. Audrey is active in the Student Council, Tech Squad, and Safety Patrol.
- Charlotte was involved in Girls on the Run in elementary school. Audrey played Chantilly Youth Association (CYA) soccer between ages 4 and 10. Olivia plays CYA lacrosse and is involved in Girls on the Run.
“It’s good to give back,” said Jeffrey.
“…because not everyone is given the same
hand of cards,” added Jen.
The couple is also very much involved in
supporting their children’s schools and
the neighborhood. Both are involved in
parent-teacher associations (PTAs), and
Jen served as a PTA president for two
years. Jeffrey has spent seven years as
president of a homeowners association
(HOA) for their neighborhood of about 158
units. Both have helped organize kid-fun
events such as summertime block parties
with water-spraying courtesy of the local
fire department and chilly December
carriage rides on subdivision streets.
Videoconferencing plays an important
role when Jeffrey and Jen find themselves
ferrying children on community service
meeting nights. Jen said the technology
“allows us to be a lot more active in
the passions that we have in addition
to our children’s passions.” Thanks to
videoconferencing, Jeffrey can preside at
HOA meetings “from the car, even when
he’s in a ballet (school) parking lot,” Jen
said. During her stint as Kiwanis governor,
she said, “I was taking committee
meetings from various child locations.”
Jen’s mother Kim Dugent of Pasadena,
Md., pitches in whenever possible. Also
working in the couple’s favor are jobs that
allow remote work: Jeffrey is a software
solutions engineer for a Chicago-based
company and Jen has a graphic design
business. Working from home means no
need for office commuting.
That said, the couple spends plenty of
time on the road shuttling children back
and forth to school, sporting events, dance
lessons, and more. A monumental effort
was needed to transport Audrey after she
was chosen for a key role as Susan Walker
in a Columbia, Md., dinner theater’s run of
the holiday season musical Miracle on
34th Street.
Many hours were spent behind the wheel
between Chantilly and Columbia for each
of the 33 performances between mid-
November and mid-January. “Because
of traffic, we would have to leave for a
7:30 (p.m.) call time at 4:30,” said Jeffrey.
“Otherwise, they wouldn’t have a Susan.”



But the challenges of transportation
haven’t diminished their appreciation for
Chantilly. Jen notes, for example,
that recent upgrades to I66 have made
a difference.
And much-deserved stress-relief is
never far for the Wolffs — a family that
loves to travel.
“We enjoy faraway places — Japan,
Thailand, Australia, and Bora Bora,” Jen
said. “We’ve also been all over Europe,
and have taken many cruises with Disney,
Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and MSC.”
Since marrying at Disney World, Jeffrey
and Jen have frequently returned with
their children to visit the resort as well as
Jeffrey’s parents, who live in Orlando.
As the children have grown, the need for
scheduling has become more important.
So when Jen asked for a calendar in
the kitchen to organize everyone, Jeff
mounted a computer with monitor on the
kitchen wall. The calendar is now a critical
element for this busy household “so we
know where we have to be all the time,”
Jeffrey said.
“The kids can see where they have to be,
too,” Jen added.
“It’s a dance,” said Jeffrey. “The whole thing
is a dance.”