For the last three years, the Purim party at Chabad at the University of Texas in Austin has been a major attraction for the school’s 4,000 Jewish students.

Last year, some 300 students joined Rabbi Zev and Ariela Johnson at their Wild Wild West Purim Party, but with schools closed for spring break when Purim comes this Sunday, March 19, the scene on campus will be quieter.

Instead, Chabad campus representatives have turned to the web and networked with their colleagues in vacation hotspots like  Cancún, Cabo S. Lucas, and Miami Beach, Chabad on Campus emissaries to ensure that their Jewish students celebrate Purim, wherever they are.

“Our job is to provide a home away from home for Jewish students - no matter where they may be,” says Rabbi Moshe Chaim Dubrowski of Chabad on Campus International. As such, Chabad on Campus has created a list of Purim services at twenty popular spring break spots and major metropolitan areas that cater especially to the student population. Word of the list - hosted on the mini-site jewishspringbreak.com - spread rapidly over social networks as Chabad campus reps updated facebook statuses and tweeted the link.

“We’ve seen a considerable uptick in traffic to our site from the list,” Dubrowski says.

While some Chabad Houses work with the student crowd year round, others must adjust to the unique needs of student spring-breakers. Rabbi Mendel Druk and his wife Rachel strike a careful balance between the needs of Cancun’s local Jewish community and the tens of thousands of Jewish tourists that come to vacation there. Students, seeking the wild party atmosphere of Cancun, require a different atmosphere than a standard family Purim meal.

“We’ve had to remind the local community in the past that we’re welcoming the students as part of our familyhere in Cancun,” Druk says.

Druk points out that although the students come to Cancun for the clubs and beaches, the community and family atmosphere are in fact a strong attraction.

“The students become fatigued of clubbing every night,” Druk says. He recalls how he is often pleasantly surprised when students who stop in for a few minutes end up staying late into the night.

Shluchim on campus are also using the down-time on campus to create community style events. While Chabad at University of Texas may not be hosting the same Purim bash as in years past, the Johnsons have made other arrangements.

“We’ve invited the students remaining on campus to join the general community event,” says Johnson. “It’s their chance to branch out and experience Purim in the context of a traditional setting.”