Obituary of Kathryn C. Jenkins-Kolaya

Kathryn Colleen Jenkins-Kolaya of Andover Township, NJ, passed away on Thursday, August 22, 2024 at the age of 38. Kathryn is survived by her beloved husband, Joseph Kolaya III, her loving parents, Kenneth and Jeannette Jenkins, her sisters, Kelly Ann and Kristy Lee Jenkins, family-in-laws, Joseph and Linda Kolaya, Jr., Jeanmarie Kolaya-Flammia and Rob Flammia, Christopher Flammia, Jessica Marie Kolaya, and many loving nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.

Kathryn was born on January 23, 1986 in Valhalla, New York. Kat (as she preferred) was a longtime resident of Hopatcong, NJ after moving from NY at the age of 3.

Kat was a black belt in Issinryu Karate and a long time Drama Club geek. A Hopatcong High School graduate, she received her BA in Theater Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, in 2008. She then ventured into acting and stunt work, working at the New Jersey Renaissance Kingdom and the New York Renaissance Faire. She was a member of SAG and did background work in "Gossip Girls", "It's Complicated", "Eat, Pray, Love", "Making it in America" as well as lead in some independent films. The acting bug led her to move to Hollywood with her future husband, Joseph, in tow.

After a few unfortunate circumstances, Kat and Joe moved home to NJ to pursue other avenues. Kat dived into her Wiccan beliefs and her love of technology brought her to be a much-loved Assistant Store Leader for GameStop and then a Tier Two Cloud Application Support Specialist for Verizon and ultimately Synchronoss Technologies in 2019. This became her great passion as she would assist law enforcement in detecting cyber-crimes.

Kat enjoyed knitting, playing video games, tattoos, geology, writing fan-fiction for her favorite shows and comics and arts and crafts. But mostly she cherished her time at home with her husband and various cats. Kat and Joe were incredibly in love, attached at the hip, and the best of friends for over 17 years and married for 9.

Kathryn's Life Celebration Services will include a Memorial Service to be announced by the family at a later date.

For memorial donations, please consider the charity of your choice.