Meet Candace Stewart | Entrepreneur, Dancer/Choreographer, and Mother

We had the good fortune of connecting with Candace Stewart and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Candace, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
My thought process behind starting my own business was trying create a space and or platform for young up and coming artist, clothing designers, musicians, business owners and entrepreneurs to have access to resources to help them grow and excel in their field to where they can financially provide for themselves and families. Hopefully creating a prosperous cycle of wealth and recycling dollars within my own community.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I have few businesses; The Meroë Exchange, Kandake’s Care Cosmetics, and Blue Lilly Lotus Queen. The Meroë Exchange is where we provide products, services, and opportunities where we hope to empower, inspire, educate, and create a platform to generate various streams of revenue for youth and young adults. We serve as the middle man of entrepreneurs, fashion designers, artists, etc to their consumer base while exposing them to a much larger market. The company objective is to help with the unemployment, and poverty rate and revitalizing the community with the people within the community. The Vision of The Meroe Exchange is to see its community self sufficient creating and generating its own income. Kandake’s Care Cosmetics is a natural face, body, and hair product line that I originally started to deal with eczema in a homeopathic way mixing my own Shea butters. We now have body butter, hair moisturizer butter, hair and body oil, restorative cream and more. Blue Lilly Lotus Queen is my newest business that I just started in December 2021, and is all about self love, intimacy, and pleasure. The goal of this business is to help people dive deeper with ourselves and relationships in order to truly experience all love has to offer us in all aspects of our lives, through education, products and services.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Some of the places that I love to eat at are Dulan’s Soul Food Kitchen in Inglewood, Harold and Belles off Jefferson Blvd, Lee Esters Creole in Lancaster, Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles on Manchester, Woody’s Bar-B-Que on Market St. I would encourage them to eat at My 2 Cents La, Jackfruit Cafe, Simply Wholesome, Taco Mel’s Catering and a host of other places. Leimert Park is a great place to visit and shop,as well as The Be-L’evated Holistic wellness & Apothecary in Santa Monica, local farmers market or even attend an event the Crypto.com arena, the Kia Forum, the Dorthy chandler pavilion or the Outlet La.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I grew up with two amazing parents that showed my brother and I love, taught us many valuable life lessons, and gave us access to great life experience. I would have to dedicate this shout to my mother for her unwavering support in all my life endeavors and helping me raise my two children as a single mother. My mother is my superhero, she has taught me to go after what I believe in and love even if it doesn’t agree with social norms and may not be easy to accomplish. She has also taught me even though things may get tough and may not go as planned, never forget why I started. I have seen my mother go through a lot and her fight to continue on in adversity and hard times gives me reassurance through my own challenging times. All of my family in different ways have inspired and help me in this continuous journey called life. I’m most grateful and thankful for the family GOD has blessed me with!

Website: Www.themeroeexchange.com

Instagram: @the.Meroe.exchange

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMeroeExchange/

Image Credits
Alicia Wilkerson, Anthony Stewart, Bernice Robinson