Evan Nied

Evan Nied (; born 2004) is an American entrepreneur and gender advocate residing in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Nied is the founder of Planting Shade, a nonprofit most notable for planting several thousands trees around the world. Nied campaigned for and ended gender discrimination at the largest festival in the largest city of Virginia by allowing women and high school boys' participation. Nied is also president of his statewide BBYO chapter and founder of HeyyyU, a social networking app created to allow open and unambiguous communication between local teens.
Neptune Festival Controversy
In the fall of 2020 Nied, wanting to break rules segregating the participation of businesswomen and adolescent boys in the participation of a major networking event, applied for the Princess position at the Virginia Beach Neptune Festival. However, he was swiftly rejected due to the norms of the festival. This led him to start the Virginia Beach Equity Council based out of Kempsville High School. Evan hoped to become a prince and change the "creepy" norms of the festival which led to the pairing of teen girls and middle-aged men. The dynamics of the organization have been increasingly questioned since. Nied has also been featured on the Cathy Lewis Show for his work with the Equity Council. In early March of 2021, the Neptune Festival admitted Nied as their first Prince and his efforts were applauded by Congresswoman Elaine Luria. The festival now allows for the participation of any junior in the festival.
Planting Shade
Nied created Planting Shade in December 2018 to plant 1,000 trees over 4 years, after Hurricane Florence forced his family to temporarily evacuate Virginia. He ended up planting 2,600 trees by March of 2020, shortly after the state of Virginia shut down. Planting Shades' mission is to increase the planting and growth of trees and tree canopy throughout the world. Planting Shade works locally in Virginia with nurseries and distributors to give citizens access to seedlings and planting techniques so that they can plant and grow trees of their own. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Nied set to expand the organization internationally and recruited 5 other environmentalists to start Planting Shade chapters in Australia, California, North Carolina, and Maryland. In late March of 2021, Planting Shade planted an additional 4,000 trees across Virginia, Colorado, Costa Rica, and North Carolina. In total the nonprofit has planted almost 7,000 trees and impacted over 10 communities that acted as planting and operation sites.
HeyyyU
In March 2020, Nied realized that many of his friends were missing out on summer programs and the social connections that were necessary for adolescent development. After talking with friends about apps that already seek to connect teens, such as Hoop or Yubo, he envisioned an app that almost exclusively connects teens based on location without the other app's restrictions. He later devised the apps seminal feature, the HEY buttons, which can navigate users based on relationship preferences, naming the site HeyyyU. HeyyyU currently operates as a website and app and has several hundred users.
Musical Career
In early April of 2020, Nied composed "At Kempsville We Give A Darn". Nied composed a rap song that would easily entertain students and faculty at his high school. He did this by persuading all 5 principals of his school to rap and star in his music video. The video received modest attention by local new outlets and received several thousand views.

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