Each year, the Voice of Hope Award is given out to individuals or organizations who help celebrate the unity and identity of Catholic Charities’ Services in the Diocese of Youngstown. 2026 welcomes two new recipients….the long time Pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Ravenna—Father William Kraynak and the Ashtabula Knights of Columbus Council number three sixty. Â
Father William Kraynak has been a fixture at Immaculate Conception Parish in Ravenna over the last 13 years. However, this summer, after five decades of service to the Diocese of Youngstown, his time in active ministry will come to a close.
“Why is this time right-right now? Because the Pope is younger than me. Promised myself back when I turned 70, that I would retire at 75. But I decided that it would be the time when I could step back. I love music. I also have always dabbled in drawing, painting, sculpture,” says Father Kraynak.
Father Kraynak was raised in the Village of Poland in the Mahoning Valley. He attended Poland High School, Holy Family Parish and is one of five children in a devout Slovak Catholic family. His father, a member of the Knights of Columbus, made sure his children prayed before each meal. In the summer while in High School, he joined the Red Cross youth program, where he would serve in hospitals, nursing homes and work closely with children who had disabilities.
“And this little guy, Mark, was the guy that I would spend time with, every week for a couple of hours, doing occupational therapy. It taught me a lot about being of service to people who have disabilities. That’s how I got started, really wakening up–a desire to serve others,” says Father Kraynak.
That led to a call to the priesthood in 1981. And after more than a dozen assignments along the way, concluding as pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Ravenna in 2013. Along the way, Father Kraynak’s 45 years of faith and service hasn’t gone unnoticed. He was recently named one of 2026 recipients of Catholic Charities’ Voice of Hope Award–nominated by the organization’s representative from Portage and Stark Counties, Rick Squier.
“Father Kraynak is just a gentle, warm human being. His leadership within his community of Immaculate Conception and Ravenna is one that is focused on what they’re doing not only spiritually, but what they’re doing in their corporal works within the community, which is really neat to see,” says Squier.
The news was quite a surprise to Father Kraynak who says he has always been focused on doing his job as pastor.
“Worked with Catholic Charities, on the Catholic Charities board. Whatever Catholic Charities needs, I would try and be helpful for. But I never thought that I did anything important. So I was quite stunned,” says Father Kraynak.
As Dean of the Portage County Deanery, Father Kraynak has had various opportunities to mentor young priests, such as father William Wainio.
“Father Kraynak has been a great support, not only to me, but also to the parishes of Saint Patrick’s and the University Parish Newman Center in Kent after the loss of our pastors. So he really stepped into a role that, as he looks down the tunnel at retirement, I don’t think he was expecting to step into, but it’s been a joy to work with him. His care not only for the people of God in our parishes, but the people of God in the wider community is infectious,” says Father Wainio.
Father Kraynak says he still hopes in retirement to be present within the Ravenna and Kent communities. And in a time of change in the Catholic Church, he remains positive, and offers this advice to community members of the newly formed Saint Katharine Drexel Parish.
“It’s an exciting time I think if we look at it in a positive way, if we look at it as though, woe is me, they took away my mass. If we look at it that way, we’re going to defeat ourselves. But if we look at it and say this will be a stronger, healthier, more vibrant Catholic parish that I want to belong to and I want to help, and I want to work with,” says Father Kraynak.
