All over the country, Operation Christmas Child is up and running again. The scheme urges people to pack up a shoebox with toys, pens, notebooks and treats for a poor child. Schools often join in because children love doing it: there is something romantic and mysterious about sending a secret collection of gifts to an unknown child in a faraway land.

Participating drop-off points include major companies, such as Caffè Nero, Shoe Zone, The Entertainer, Barratt Homes and some newspaper offices, such as Luton Today. The volunteer organisation Worcester Lions Club is packing shoeboxes inside Waitrose. Geoff Lewis of the club said: “It’s not known where the boxes will eventually end up at this time. But what is certain is that it will be with a child somewhere in the world that will not be receiving another Christmas present this year.” Maybe if people did know, they might hesitate.

Wales Online reports that Glamorgan cricket team and the Cardiff Blues rugby club are also supporters of the scheme, the former reporting last year that they had helped to load “over 10,000 gift boxes on to vehicles leaving the south Wales depot for a destination in Albania”.

Albania? That’s the clue – a mainly Muslim country, the kind of place where most of these shoeboxes are destined. The sort of countries that, indeed, as in the awful song, do not know it’s Christmastime at all.

Many good-hearted packers of shoeboxes know little of the organisation behind this scheme. It’s run by Samaritan’s Purse, fundamentalist American evangelical Christian missionaries. After the boxes are dispatched, they are then delivered along with a missionary book of bible stories, The Greatest Gift, with “the 12 Bible lessons offered by many of the churches distributing shoeboxes,” according to the Samaritan’s Purse website. “157 million children in over 160 countries have experienced God’s love through the power of simple shoebox gifts from Operation Christmas Child.”

A story from its website tells how a shoebox converted a Muslim family to Christianity: “Angella received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox filled with presents last year at this time. Since then she’s led her Muslim family to Christ.

“Christmas is all about the unexpected: an angel appearing to shepherds, a virgin conceiving, God becoming man … Something unexpected and wonderful began among the Kulemba family of Malawi, a country in southern Africa. That day their 12-year-old daughter Angella received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift from the local church. Angella reads the gospel booklet to her family. All are now following Christ.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The man who runs the Samaritan’s Purse, which has a £16m income, is the strongly anti-gay and anti same-sex marriage Rev Franklin Graham.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

The man who runs the Samaritan’s Purse, which has a £16m annual income, is Rev Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He spoke at the inauguration of both George W Bush and Donald Trump. In an interview with Newsmax, Graham claimed that Obama had “allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to become part of the US government and influence administration decisions”.

Strongly anti-gay and anti-same-sex marriage, Graham defended Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “gay propaganda” law, praising him for “protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda”. He told the Washington Post that God had intervened to cause Trump’s election: “I could sense going across the country that God was going to do something this year. And I believe that at this election, God showed up.”

On Facebook he wrote, “We are under attack by Muslims at home and abroad. We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the US until this threat with Islam has been settled. Every Muslim that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalised – and they do their killing to honour their religion and Muhammad.”

Most people packing up shoeboxes don’t know they are used for anti-Muslim proselytising. Or that they are backing a pro-Trump, anti-gay message. Some may be from churches sharing that evangelical brand – but I would guess most parents and children haven’t a clue what they are supporting.

Humanists UK, of which I am vice-president, has drafted a template letter that people can sign informing schools and others, urging them to reconsider their support, and offering alternative suggestions. Richy Thompson, Humanists UK’s director of public affairs and policy, says: “Those who donate to the scheme are well-intentioned and want to make an altruistic contribution, but donors in the UK should be aware of the nature of Operation Christmas Child’s activities and instead find a reputable and inclusive charity that has no ulterior motives and only has children’s best interests at heart.”

No one wants to be the Grinch: filling shoeboxes is a feelgood act of generosity. But sending stacks of boxes with Christian missionary messages to Muslim countries is unlikely to ease interfaith tensions – nor is it an economical or ecological way to give: as ever, boring old money to good charities goes further. I note, also in the Luton News, one Lewsey residents’ association is calling for people to fill shoeboxes to be distributed by their local food bank – a far better idea than what one critic called “gift-wrapped Islamophobia”.

• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist