Hellobee Boards

I teach kids that age, and my nephew is also 12. The only thing he could think of, other than gift cards, was a classic NES, but I know that’s a little above your price range.

One idea is to get a gift card for Target/Wal-Mart along with some athletic socks like this. I would say over half the boys I teach wear socks like this often:

https://www.nike.com/t/elite-crew-basketball-socks-zGJxZD/SX7622-411?cp=usns_us_nike_300918_ho18_aw_kw_xcat_serve_fm_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x__x_x_x_dfa&gclid=Cj0KCQiA8_PfBRC3ARIsAOzJ2upuHbxEvxVTbveHFL4WSGyxAW0POV27LtI2KTLMcaLmd3zJlPnlrD8aAiyhEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Edited to add that, for the boys you’re sponsoring, I would make sure if you get a gift card, that it’s to a place they can access easily and not somewhere online. It would probably be totally fine, but there’s a surprising amount of housing instability, and I would be afraid they would have a hard time knowing where to ship it. There are a LOT of homeless kids and families who stay in different places often, even in suburban districts, which probably would surprise a lot of people. Just something to keep in mind.

*following!! - they are definitely hard to shop for, and I think they are still young enough to want a gift to open along with possible gift cards