Wearing a beige winter coat, Mai Chung Vang, 12, and her mother waited in the pre-dawn darkness for the doors of the Totem Lake Fred Meyer to open.

Inside, Santa Claus and nearly 100 volunteers waited to greet Vang and hundreds of other children and parents the morning of Dec. 6 for the annual Shoes from Santa charity event.

Retired local realtor Craig Shriner began the event as an alternative to a company holiday party seven years ago. He said Christmas parties come and go, but doing something for children in the community was a worthier pursuit.

“When I was a kid, one of my most treasured moments was getting a new pair of shoes,” Shriner said.

Agents from Windemere Real Estate on Market Street and Redmond, lawyers from Cecilia Cordova and local charitable group Giving Chicks all volunteered. They each took a child by the hand and led them into the store’s shoe department, helping try-on and find them a new pair of shoes.

Vang, led into the stacks of childrens shoes and surrounded by a throng of others, seemed to have settled on a pair of Converse sneakers.

“She wants black, so we’ve been trying to find her something that fits,” Saenz said.

With the help of the Lake Washington School District, 300 children were invited to the store to choose a free pair of new shoes, gloves, socks, toothbrushes and visit with Santa Claus. While waiting for the children, their parents were also presented with a Christmas ham.

Shiner said the volunteers had raised over $18,000 to pay for all of the shoes, gloves and other goodies they were giving to the children.

Regular store customers trying to get some morning shopping done were puzzled by all of the activity before 8 a.m., some asking store manager Kevin Elicker about it.

“Once they find out, they get a little excited and think it’s pretty neat,” he said.