Loni Love, SVW, Kid Capri and more will be joining Ashley Stewart as they celebrate the finale of their second annual “Finding Ashley Stewart” competition. The finale marks the ending is of an exhaustive search held digitallyand offline at regional locations for a fashion-forward woman who embodies the virtues Ashley Stewart has built their brand on “kindness, resilience, confidence, and community.”

Women from cities including Newark, Dallas, Richmond, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York and Atlanta showed up and showed out throughout the year strutting through the aisles and shaking hands with preliminary judges attempting to stand out.

Chosen finalists from the search compete at the finale for a chance to be crowned Miss Ashley Stewart 2018. The winner receives $10,000 in cash and the opportunity to represent the brand in on-line and off-line campaigns for the year.

Last year’s winner Theresa Royals talked about the opportunities her crown presented her with. "Being Miss Ashley Stewart 2017 has not only empowered me emotionally, but it has also opened doors to me as an aspiring full-figured model, motivational speaker and influencer,” said. “This has been an overwhelmingly amazing experience that humbles me every time someone greets me as Miss Ashley Stewart. But the winner isn't the only one walking away with a prize.

A portion of ticket sales from the event, which will be held at the historic Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre, will be used to provide scholarships for local educational institutions including the Newark Campus of our very own Rutgers University.

Other institutions benefitting from the evening include Brooklyn’s Mott Hall Bridges Academy, and Medgar Evers College but the brand plans to announce others in the upcoming months.

Loni Love, who is a co-host of Fox’s Emmy Award winning roundtable show “The Real”, is the perfect choice to partner with Ashley Stewart. She’s been extremely vocal about the need for plus-size women to have more options and is quick to call out inequalities in the fashion industry.

Last year’s host Boris Kodjoe said that Ashley Stewart was “not just a clothing line” but “it's a movement, it's a way of life.”

Celebs who showed up to support last year's event included "Power" star Andrea Rachel Parker.

At last year’s event Ashley Stewart’s Chairman James Rheespoke with passion about the brand’s long standing community ties and what it’s meant to its consumers. On expanding those ties with this year’s expanded search he said “With twenty-seven years of deeply rooted ties amongst women in local communities across the country, Ashley Stewart and the Ashley Stewart woman have always had a great deal of influence and impact in every aspect of life. The #FindingAshleyStewart tour and finale represents just one way in which we are making that influence and impact more apparent to all.”

Starting today, a limited amount of reserved premium tickets for the finale will be available in select New York and New Jersey stores for Ashley Stewart loyalists at a discounted price!

I attended with one of my good girlfriends last year and had a great time watching En Vogue take us back to school dances and skorts!

Head over to your local store and get ready to get your life this year as SWV, Kid Capri, MC Lyte, Denise “Saucy Wow” Belfon, and more will be hitting the stage!

Additional for this year’s finding Ashley Stewart celebration are available at Ticketmaster.

Learn more about how you can support Rutgers University here.