in tonight's hero's central derek mcginty tells us about an organization that reaches and teaches adultrners who find their way from frustration to eternal gratitude. >> this is the fire station. >> reporter: the lessons sound ridiculously simple. >> that's my birthday, right? >> reporter: but for these students it may as well be a foreign language because it is. >> some learners coming into our program might be learning the alphabet. might be learning to put together the word cat or dog. >> reporter: these learners coming from all over the world and now they have got two things in common. they badly want to learn english and they have come here to the literacy council of northern virginia to do it. >> we just focus on very, very beginning level because there is nobody else helping the population. >> reporter: executive director patty donnelly says most of that help comes one on one from 1400 dedicated volunteers and we do mean dedicated? >> in order to be a literacy council volunteer tutorrer they have to take 12 hours of training to serve in the basic literacy program or 16 hours of t

. >> reporter: derek mcginty, 9 news now. >> the volunteers make the literacy council successful but donations keep them going. they have given $5,000 to support the worthy cause. to learn more about the group or others we profile go to wusa, 9.com and go to features and -- wusa9.com and go to features and click on heros central. >>> mother nature gave us the fireworks last night. >> reporter: yes, and we have quite a few people in the dark this morning. talking to me on facebook, and they must be using their phones or pdas or something. i'm sorry always -- i'm always there. i am on facebook and twitter each morning. >> we have the apps. >> the apps as well on wusa9.com, you can download those. talking about clouds around here. some sunny breaks. temperatures at 9:00, lower 80s. 1:00, 88 this afternoon, the development of a few thunderstorms. going farther south of d.c, opposed to farther north of dc. winds north to north westerly at 5 to 10 miles an hour. the high today, up to 92. by firework time, we should be in better shape. i will show you the firework forecast, 83 degrees. the