I think you are very much overestimating the risk of being murdered to simply embarrassing yourself in *most* places this kind of mentoring might take place...there are a lot of reasons I prefer mostly being in the closet as opposed to putting myself as out there as That Parent who might want to mentor people into being That Parent, Too but I admit fearing to be murdered isn't one of them.
It is not difficult to look at statistics and quantify the risks. And you have to consider the cumulative risk of exposing yourself to a risk many times (e.g. going to a dangerous part of town every day all day for ten years, as opposed to going there once for five minutes). Even if the risk of being murdered is a fraction of 1%, why expose yourself unnecessarily to that risk. And there are other more common crimes such as (armed) robbery, assault, vehicle theft to also be worried about. The danger is very real.
In any case, my family's personal experience is not with dangerous parts of town, but with a specific and unexpected dangerous individual, and we now most certainly know that trying to help people can be extremely dangerous.
ETA: I have friends who have been robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight just walking into the wrong area. (The gifted program my kids could have gone to is in the same area.) It's real.
