Definitely. I didn't even know what programming was until I was about 20 years old in college, and this was after I'd settled on a major. After graduating and starting my first startup, I saw my two cofounders working on the website the first week or two and actually said "Wait, THAT'S programming?" I thought it was exclusively for making rabbit simulators in Java or something. Our goal is to get more people exposed to it earlier. I wish someone had told me, and hopefully CodeCombat will tell other kids!

And if they are genuinely interested, that they have access to the necessary resources to continue.

In middle school we had a two week section on computers and programming, which I absolutely devoured. But I didn't have access to the computer lab again in middle school, the two high schools I attended didn't even have computer labs, and my family wouldn't own a computer until more than a decade later. :-(