Tanaye White was working full-time for the US Department of Veterans Affairs when her student loans repayment was about to kick in. In order not to feel the burden of the monthly bill, she thought of ways to supplement that discrepancy, while also not conflicting with her full time nine to five job.
This led her to become a courier for UberEats. This was after she did her research and found it to be easy and flexible to do. “I did it late at night. I did it on New Years, I did it on the holidays. I did it early in the morning. I really appreciate that. And so quickly, the pandemic, of course, threw everyone on a loop,” she told Ebony.
White reveals that she earned at least $100 per day from UberEat after food deliveries saw a 17% year-over-year increase from 2019 while over 100 million Americans use app deliveries to get food.
According to White, her desire to earn extra income led her to pursue other passions, including the launch of Good Babe, which is a combination of different mental health endeavours she has done over the years.
“It first started as an advice column while I was in college to support depressed young people, then after college, I settled on a website, then I started using the media like Instagram to promote reality on social media with the hashtag #letsgetreal,” she noted.
Growing up, the mental health advocate had always wanted to be a model and by age 27, she decided to finally pursue her secret childhood dream. In 2018, she auditioned for Sports Illustrated and out of 3,000 girls, she made it all the way to the top 16 finalists. However, she was unsuccessful and gave it a try again in 2019 and this time around, she made it.
She landed a freelance gig with Sports Illustrated and became the only woman in Sports Illustrated 2020 magazine sporting her Afro. “Other girls have an extensive resume, they have the look and the feel and the vibe and I was literally just a girl who worked in an office 9 to 5,” White told WUSA 9.
Now White feels she is doing what really excites her and has since left her defense career to focus on full-time modelling.
“I feel really privileged to not only represent dark-skinned women in the magazine but also in the industry because there are so many things we need in order for Black women to feel included,” White said.
White has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Maryland and a Master’s in Public Relations and Corporate Communications from Georgetown University.
