Meet Our 2026 ESPRIT Award Winner: Wai Kiu Man

An older couple who were having difficulty making ends meet were sharing an apartment with about 10 other people when they came to our Chinatown Neighborhood Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NNORC) office and met with Wai Kiu Man. Wai Kiu, a Licensed Social Worker, helped them secure SSI and SNAP benefits to ease their financial difficulties, then spent about a year guiding them through the affordable housing process.

Last year, thanks in part to Wai Kiu’s assistance, the couple was able to move into their own apartment. “Seeing how much their lives changed is exactly why I became a social worker,” he says.

For more than a decade, Chinatown’s older adults have brought Wai Kiu their problems with housing, finances, benefits and health. He knows the exact resources that can help them, as well as all the application requirements and deadlines that could possibly block their access to services they’re entitled to. Then he follows each matter through until it’s settled.

“I try to make a difference by listening carefully to what our seniors need, then helping them navigate the systems and resources that can address those needs,” he says.

In 2025, SNAP benefit theft swept through the Chinatown community, with dozens of people reporting that the benefits they relied on for food had been stolen. Wai Kiu set out to teach the community residents how to protect themselves. He held workshops, then sat with members one-on-one to help set up a mobile app that protects their benefits, going over the steps as many times as it took for each person to learn how to manage it on their own.

“Thank you for teaching me step by step and never making me feel embarrassed for not understanding the technology,” one member told him.

Cases of theft dropped precipitously, thanks to an informed and empowered community. “Most of our seniors now understand how to use the app,” Wai Kiu says. “Seeing that kind of improvement across the community makes me very proud.”

Colleagues know Wai Kiu as calm and gentle—so much so that when he mentions his black belt in Taekwondo, people sometimes think he’s joking. That steadiness was on full display one winter when a blizzard forced the program to go remote while the manager was on vacation. Wai Kiu stepped in to coordinate the team, organizing wellness checks for members and taking on several complex cases himself.

Wai Kiu says he’s wanted to be a social worker since he was about eight years old, when one helped him through a difficult time. He sees the ESPRIT Award as a reflection of the support he gets from his Chinatown team. His clients show their appreciation too, whether with a word of gratitude or even a handmade thank-you card. As Wai Kiu puts it, “Hearing someone say, ‘Thank you—because of your help, my life has changed,’ is one of the greatest rewards I can receive.”