This. Get him a pile of cards from craigslist or a similar 2nd hand side. I’d probably go for private sellers that are just quitting the hobby, so you have a better mix of good and ordinary cards compared to what @iii@mander.xyz described. But I would say especially younger kids can be impressed by quantity far more than quality.
Any information on the age of the children?
I mean that’s good. Ideally, no one should work in meat processing. Still, it feels different to me in terms of child labor if the employees are like 12 or rather 17.