gmake - how to generate variable assignments?

[Ernest]

Say I have a variable with n words...

FILES = foo1 foo2 foo3 ...

And I want to be able to generate *global* variable assignments (which may 
need to be used later in multiple targets) of the form:

foo1_VAR = ${VALUES}
foo2_VAR = ${VALUES}
...

Is there a way to do this?  I've looked into $(eval) and "define", but they 
appear to be limited to doing stuff inside a target's command list 
only...not for generating willy-nilly makefile lines.

Thanks,
Ernest