Fletcher Brothers

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Pastor Fletcher A. Brothers is a fundamentalist preacher and author from Rochester, New York, USA.

Fletcher A. Brothers

He is best known as the founder of Freedom Village(FV), a reform school operated from a Christian Fundamentalist perspective and founded in Starkey, New York in 1981. The campus building was the site of the defunct Lakemont Academy, a secular boys boarding school. Freedom Village also operates an office in Burlington, Ontario and recruits many students from Canada.

Patterned somewhat after the reform homes established by Lester Roloff, FV uses a far less physical discipline, and as such has been less controversial than the Roloff Homes and other Fundamentalist boot camps. Representatives of FV have been invited to speak at public schools in the USA and Canada. There has been concern expressed, however, about restrictions placed by FV on contact between students and their parents. Parents are only allowed to visit their children on a pre-arranged basis and only after three months, and children are not allowed to leave until after one year.

Brothers' fund-raising activities have occasionally drawn criticism as well. In 1993, a Federal Bankruptcy Court judge forgave 85% of Freedom Village's $21-million debts.

Like Roloff, Brothers has preached on radio, and indeed uses radio as a recruiting tool. FV produces the daily 30-minute "Victory Today" radio show, featuring his preaching and occasional interviews of FV staff or students.

The schools own a large stable of show horses called "Reins of Freedom" that are often presented at both religious and secular gatherings.