TAG you’re it, at The Shop Agora

If you’ve ever stopped by the food and wine store The Shop Agora at 65th and Phinney Ave. N., then you know how nice and thoughtful the owners, Nikos Spiliopoulos and Alexis Saloutos, are. Now, Alexis has decided that the world needs a little more generosity and kindness, so she’s created TAG cards as a kind of “pay it forward” project.
She created eight different sets of cards, with five cards to a set. Each one embodies certain positive qualities, such as Integrity, Courage, Support, Generosity, Patience, Joy, Hope and Inspiration. The idea is to give a card to someone who embodies that particular quality.

For example, if the grocery store checker goes out of her way to help a customer, you could tag her with a card of Patience, Generosity or Compassion. You can then go online to the project’s website – transformationunderground.org – and post your story about tagging someone. The person who was tagged could also post their story.
Then, if you’ve been tagged, instead of keeping that card (although you could if you wanted), the idea is to pass it along to the next person you see who embodies that quality (as in, “tag, you’re it!”)
“It was just a creative flash that came to me. Just the idea of being able to pay it forward,” Alexis told me this afternoon. “I first started grouping words that I thought went well together.”

Alexis and her mother discussed the idea for a long time, while Alexis set to work on the cards’ design. The cards just arrived from the printer this week, so The Shop Agora is holding a launch party for the TAG project on Thursday at 7 p.m. Alexis said everyone is invited to stop by for some food and conversation.
TAG cards are currently at Bastyr University’s dispensary and at The Shop Agora, and she’s hoping to get them in local book stores and card shops. Twenty percent of the profits go to Gua Africa to help build a school.
“My dream for this project? To just have them impact everyone they touch,” Alexis said. “Traveling across the world and making people feel good.”