26-year-old Canaan woman participates in Full Figured Fashion Week

CANAAN - A curvy, full-figured and big-hearted Canaan resident is hitting the runway this week in New York City to model plus size fashions by designers like Lane Bryant, Bloomingdales and K-mart.

"I love to give women who aren't a size two dreams. So they know not being skinny or a pole is beautiful," model Maegan Bell Stearns said. "Everyone should love their own bodies."

At just 26 years of age, Stearns, or “Rae Lynn” as she's called in the modeling world, is also proving that healthy, full-figured women who are a size 10 and up don't have to settle for jobs behind the camera either.