Vivian Ho (center) and her All The Same co-founder, Anika Luangaphay (left), with school supply boxes they assembled to donate to Austin students in underserved areas.

Not Just a High School Student: New Student Council Co-President Vivian Ho Runs a Global Nonprofit

UT High School senior Vivian Ho leads thousands of volunteers around the world. Now she’s leading her own school, too. After serving as Student Council vice president last year, Vivian was recently elected co-president alongside Naomi Eisenman.

Whether at home in Texas or abroad, for Vivian, community service isn’t an extracurricular activity or a box to check on a college application. It’s her mission. She co-founded and serves as CEO of All The Same, an international nonprofit with more than 200 chapters and more than 8,000 volunteers.

Since its founding in April 2025, the organization has supported more than 20,000 people, donated more than 150,000 supplies, and served 1,645 families through customized school-supply packages, scholarship connections, and resources delivered directly through schools so families can access them more easily. 

“Growing up as a Vietnamese immigrant in Pflugerville, I was often the only English speaker in my family and helped my family navigate resources from a young age,” she said.

“At school, I watched kids like me do their best while quietly trying to hide worn-down clothes, missing supplies, and the fear of being seen as different, not because we lacked motivation, but because we lacked the support we needed,” Vivian explained in a story on Channel Kindness.

Vivian was a frequent volunteer at local schools when she saw that students and families faced the same struggles her family and many others had in Central Texas. “Seeing students struggle to access resources because of language, transportation, or simply not knowing where to look made me realize how important it is to bring those resources directly to them. That experience ultimately inspired me to start All The Same.”

Last year, a support specialist at Austin's Dobie Middle School nominated Vivian for the Mayor's Distinguished Service Award after All The Same donated more than 40,000 supplies to the school and took low-income students to NASA. All The Same has also been covered by KQED, the PBS station in San Francisco.

Local Leaders, Global Reach

The organization's global footprint raises an obvious question: How does a high school student identify needs in countries she's never visited? The answer is local leadership. Students in other countries reach out to start their own chapters, and those chapter leaders become the organization's eyes on the ground.

“Because they live there, they're able to identify what their communities actually need and shape their work around our mission of making resources and opportunities more accessible,” Vivian said.

The same philosophy guides how All The Same chooses the schools it serves in the U.S. The organization concentrates on struggling communities and Title I schools, partnering with staff and community groups who understand their students' needs. Vivian and her team look specifically for places where barriers like transportation, language, and limited information make resources harder to reach, then work with school staff to deliver exactly what students need, whether supply packages, educational opportunities, or career exploration.

Much of All The Same's rapid growth has come from meeting students where they already are. Social media plays a central role in both recruiting volunteers and sharing the organization's work. The team regularly posts distributions, volunteer activities, and school partnerships on Instagram and TikTok at @allthesameorg. Students discover the content, reach out to get involved, and often go on to lead chapters of their own. That pipeline has fueled the group's growth to more than 200 chapters and thousands of volunteers.

Leading at Home

That same instinct, bringing opportunities to where people already are, shapes Vivian’s approach to Student Council. She and Naomi want to make meetings more engaging and draw more students into council activities. Vivian is especially focused on virtual volunteering: service opportunities designed for UTHS’s online students, who don’t always have easy access to traditional in-person volunteering.

“Since Naomi is the international president, she brings insight into the experience of students living abroad, while I bring my own perspective as someone in the U.S. who has worked with partners overseas many times. I hope to use Naomi's international insight to bring new opportunities to UTHS, like creating engaging meetings for students not just in Texas but around the world,” said Vivian. 

Vivian’s other goals as co-president include making sure that students are heard even though it is often more difficult in a virtual environment. 

Whether she is working with fellow UTHS students or helping lead thousands of volunteers around the world, Vivian's focus remains the same: making sure opportunities and resources don't simply exist but reach the people who need them. After UTHS, Vivian plans to major in public policy or business and likely minor in the other. “I hope to use my education to improve people's lives while expanding my nonprofit and creating an even greater impact,” she said.