Heard of a large law firm, iirc, whose IT dept did that one year. they didn't require anybody do anything with them, just "here's the fancy $300 kit with all the parts ready". and they got very positive reactions and the people who din't want to play with the kits themselves had people they could pass their kits on to who appreciated them.
I would love this.
I mean, it's basically what my job is (write code to make hw do blinky stuff - gross simplification, but yeah...) anyway, but I would find getting that to be really cool. Of course, my SO would just see it as yet more HW taking up residence here (I'm remote and my company sends me all sorts of HW that I need).
Something that many people find useful (especially monitoring CO2 levels at home) and it comes with a nice 3d printable enclosure to pass SO approval ...
Coincidentally, they happen to sell adabox, a gift box for $60 https://www.adafruit.com/adabox_get_started